The Excitement Begins
by Wyxlan Lonestar
Summary: He wanted change to happen in his life. So when he dares a mysterious number to do so, he is sent to the world of Gaia, except he is joined by others. Join Eliot Fletcher as he journeys from Disc 1 till Disc 4 to feel the excitement he has longed for. ON HIATUS! UNDERGOING CHANGES AND REWRITES!
1. Chapter 1:  Wishes Upon A Cell

**Greetings readers! I'm Wyxlan_Lonestar**

**I thank you for pressing this story because the story has sparked your curiosity. I just hope to not disappoint you.**

**This is my first story in the site, so please be gentle in your reviews. And I would appreciate any tips for me to improve my story and my writing.**

**I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. I just own the OCs that appear in the story**

**Chapter 1 – Wishes Upon a Cell**

_"Hey…"_

_"Wake up…"_

_"Eliot..."_

**"MISTER FLETCHER!"**

My eyes popped open from my sleep as I heard a loud smack. I lifted my head and looked in front of me to see a very blurry spot. "Mister Fletcher, how many times did I tell you to not fall asleep in class?" A voice questioned me.

"Uhm, five?" I groggily replied. All of the students laughed at my obviously idiotic response. I rubbed my eyes until the blurriness disappeared. When I looked up again, I saw my teacher glaring at me from his desk.

"Wrong!" he yelled as he slammed his pointer on his desk. "I have told you that almost every day, every time you attend my class, and every time you doze off."

Then this turned into a rant about how we high school students are really lazy, flippant about life, and other bullcrap he would rant about. After wasting ten whole minutes, he then continued on with the lesson.

"God damn..." I groaned. I stretched out my arms in an effort to get some feeling back into them. "I think I have a hangover."

"No, that's just you having an enormous headache," Someone said. I turned my head to the right to see a guy with raven hair and a calm disposition looked at me. He gave a short friendly wave. I returned him a wave to him myself.

"Gee, what gave you that idea, huh, Joshua?" I sarcastically asked. Before I snickered, the teacher turned around and eyed us. "Mister Fletcher and Mister Valenti," called our teacher. "Would you like to continue your discussion in detention?"

We shook our heads as an answer. He was still eying me with annoyance gleaming in his eye. "And how many times have I told you to take off your hat? You are ignoring the rules of conduct of our school."

That question made me latch my hand onto my hat. "Actually ever since I came to this class everyday," I replied nonchalantly, not even worried of the building annoyance that was shown on his face.

"You'll be receiving a letter to your parents about this, Mister Fletcher," he stated and went back to his lesson. I sighed and remained quiet until the bell rang to signal that classes were over for today.

I got my things and went outside where Joshua waited for me. "Bad day?" he asked me.

"Oh yeah. I'm having a very bad day," I replied. "This day just can't get any worse for me."

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw an short, angry-looking, red-haired, burning hazel eyed girl appeared right beside the corner. She approached like she was a predator looking at its prey. **"ELIOT!"** the girl yelled. Darn, it just got worse.

"What do you want?" I turned to face her, and her fist somehow got to my gut. I staggered as I held my mid section. "Ow! What was that for!"

"That was for abandoning me earlier at lunch," she answered. And then she grabbed my collar and put my head in a headlock and started to noogie me. "And this is for bailing on me during Chemistry. You know that I don't do well with the chemicals there. I almost caused a nuclear explosion. And you didn't even tell me that you were leaving!"

I struggled under her grip and tried to get out of the damn hold. "Will you let me go for a sec!" I demanded. She let go of my head. "So, are you going to tell me why?" she asked. "Or will I have to unload another noogie on you? Got it memorized?"

"That won't be necessary," I said, glaring at her while feeling if my hair needed some fixing. But I decided against it since I was wearing my hat.

"First of all," I began, "you were starting another fight with the jocks and you were using me as your 'partner' for that fight. Second, I hate Chemistry. Third, there were basic instructions given to us that I retold you again and again. And lastly, I told you that I left when you were trying to follow what Mister Red was doing." I took a deep breath after finishing that last sentence. She still glared at me after my explanation. She turned her head to Joshua, her look asking if it was true. He nodded. "Fine…" she muttered.

"I told you it was gonna get worse," I said. She took that as an insult and slapped me in the back, hard. Once that was out of the way, she grinned. "Now that we got that out of the way, let's hang out at the mall!" I shuddered. _Sheesh, changing moods like that could be unhealthy, then again, it was her._

"What did you say?" she demanded. Joshua shook his head while I avoided her gaze.

As we were walking out of the classroom, I felt something weird. I couldn't describe this feeling that I had. And for some reason, my phone rang. I quickly got my phone from my pocket.

"A text message?" I muttered.

"_Do you wish for something_?" the message asked. This was a weird message. I felt that this was one of those pranks the geeks at school would try to pull, and they had been for the past few weeks.

Even though I didn't know what the meaning of this message was or who had sent this, I made a reply.

_"Yes, I do. I wish for something, something life changing."_

Then just like that, the reply was sent. If this is a prank, I'll try and play along. If not well I just hope I don't meet this person because I'm going kill him, maybe literally.

"Hey, Eliot, what's the matter?" Joshua asked, and I finally realized that I had stopped walking and both of my walking companions had been staring at me for some time.

"Oh, it's just a text message," I replied.

"I bet it's a girl, is it?" teased Kit, poking me after each syllable that left her lips.

I rolled my eyes. "Where did you get that idea?"

***-FF-**-FF-**-FF-***

The three of us left our school and boarded the bus that stopped along the sidewalk.

"What do you mean?" she asked, waving a fist in front of my face.

"I mean that going to the mall with you is going to be like this: you shopping until you reduce your credit to nothing and us being ordered by you to carry all of your stuff. We're not slaves, you know," I explained. She mocked gasped at my accusations.

"Why, I cannot believe that you, of all people, would think of me like that." she said with sarcasm dripping from her words.

"Actually, I do think of you like that. Since you shop like a maniac and you let us carry the things half your size." She then punched me. "Okay, now you have to stop punching me. It hurts, you know." I said. Both of them laughed.

I had been thinking for a while now. Life had never been interesting these past years. This god forsaken town has never done anything exciting, let alone be a dull town. Events here tend to bore me rather than fill me with energy. I'm thinking of moving from this town. Maybe move into somewhere more exciting, like New Orleans or Texas, at least I'd get to party in the Big Easy or get to be a cowboy in Texas. I'd bet no one would miss me I'm sure of that and I wouldn't miss the people here. They'll just think I didn't exist here, which would be a good thing.

"Are you okay?" Joshua asked. I snapped out of my trance. "Oh uh, yeah. I'm alright, I guess." I said. He must have noticed that I haven't been paying attention for the past two minutes.

Both of them were staring at my face. Their stares made me feel strange. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," she said, waving her hands in defense.

I raised my eyebrow at her and she chuckled nervously. The bus stopped and we got off the rusty automobile and onto the sidewalk.

Then my phone started to ring for the second time today. This was really odd as I had never received two text messages in a day unless they're about my parents, who were travelling around the world because of their jobs.

"_Ah, the unreachable dream-the best kind of dream. And what is that dream that you are trying to find?"_

Again, I thought of not replying to the message. I wanted to reply, but I never did trust any random person texting me who wanted a quick chat. It would be wise for me to not say anything important.

_"I'm sorry, I don't trust you enough."_ And after pressing a button, the reply was sent. There, no important stuff. I just hoped that person wouldn't be asking about it anymore.

"What are we gonna do now?" asked Joshua. Since we were not going to the mall now, we were left with nothing to do.

"Oh I know! Let's play some games at Eliot's house," Kit suggested. Before I could object, she had already decided on it. _Sure, decide on it without the owner's permission._

"Stop your bitchin' Eliot. You know your mom loves it when you bring company," she said.

"Yeah, I'm sure she loves it when I bring a member lost smurf and a yes man home." For that, she punched me right in the gut.

We reached my house just around 4:30 since we took a detour for a snack. I unlocked the door with the house key that was kept under the rug. It was such an obvious hiding spot for keys, and my mother hid the key there all the time.

"Eliot, where's the bathroom?" Joshua immediately asked after entering the house. I pointed to the door at the end of the hallway. He muttered thanks and quickly walked to it. Kit sat on the couch and picked up a shoebox containing some disk cases. Those must be the games that I had left lying around. I was playing some games before I went to school this morning. Or maybe that was yesterday.

"Do you have any game in mind?" I asked. Kit's fingers scrolled through the disks.

"Where's your Kingdom Hearts 2?" she asked back.

I sighed. "Anything but that," I muttered. She glared at me. "What? I don't want to play it."

"Then I'll play it."

"You just finished Kingdom Hearts 2 two days ago."

"Then I want to play the remake of Chain of Memories."

"No, no, no, no, no! You finished that a week ago. And it was just rented, so I returned it."

"You asked for a game to play. You shouldn't have asked in the first place if you're gonna refuse to play it, anyway!"

"First, I didn't want you to play at my house. Second, you play Kingdom Hearts at your place almost everyday!"

I turned around, crossed my arms, and grunted at her. She must have done the same since I heard her grunt as well.

"You guys really can't stop fighting." Turning my head, I saw Joshua out of the bathroom and drying his hands with a paper towel. He approached Kit and randomly took a case from the shoebox.

My phone rang again. Just in time. I couldn't take another second of arguing with Kit. I took my phone from my pocket to open the newly received message.

_"But I can make that dream of yours a reality. Make it yours and yours only. Just say the word..."_

I wasn't sure if this was still a trick or the real deal. It was so tempting. Maybe it was the truth, maybe this person can make it real. Or I'm being fooled right here.

_"Whatever, see if I care."_ And I pressed send.

After closing my phone, I was approached by Joshua. "What was that about?" he asked. I just waved my hand to dismiss the subject.

"So, to be fair, let's just play this one." He said, waving the case around. He gave me the case and sat next to Kit on the couch.

"Final Fantasy IX? Are you sure?" I asked with a little bit of disbelief in my voice. Well, I had to be sure. He did pick it at random, so maybe he picked the wrong game. But what luck he had to pick my favourite game of the Playstation One console, the greatest game I have played, Final Fantasy IX. Ah, this brought back memories.

"Yes, Eliot, I'm positive on this one," he replied. "Of course, we can play a different game if you want."

"No, uh, no need. We'll play this," I managed to say while waving my hands. I stood up and loaded the game into the PlayStation. Joshua turned on the television and switched the channel to AV 1.

"How in the name of hell are we–the three of us–gonna play a single player RPG?" asked Kit. She looked as thought she was still mad at me for earlier.

"Simple, we take turns," I answered. She frowned. This was gonna get us into another argument.

"Are you kidding? You mean each of us gets to play after a turn?" I nodded. She groaned while Joshua chuckled. The game started to load, thank god. My PlayStation was really old and sometimes froze or did not load the game. I guess that's what old age did, even for gaming consoles.

"Eliot," Joshua called. "Your phone is ringing."

For the fourth time today, really? I felt that something was wrong with this picture, and with 'picture' I mean today's events. If it's that guy who's sending me messages, then pigs should be flying above my head.

The prologue scene started playing with its wonderful flute solo, or so I think it was a flute solo. Where the Square Soft logo is showed and then started to show different places on the map of Gaia. I was about to read the message when Joshua tugged my shirt.

"Dude, something's wrong with the TV." he said. The logo of Final Fantasy IX was supposed to be right there after the prologue but it wasn't. It was actually blinking and flickering with static. And in no time, the TV died. I knew it. My playstation won't let me play my favourite game. Kit stood up and started banging the TV to bring it back to life, sadly it's not working.

I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at the previously alerted message. But this message kinda shocked me. Instead of seeing text, I was seeing 0s and 1s. It's like the Matrix! The TV then came back to life, still flickering and blinking like crazy. The lights of the house started blinking along with the TV, the fan was slowing down and then going faster, it's like the whole house is having a power shortage.

The short red headed girl grabbed me by the collar of my polo shirt. Her hands shaking and her eyes were showing panic. "What the hell's going on?" Kit demanded to know. If I did know, I wouldn't tell you naturally. I was about to reply when my cell phone rang again, this time in my hand. But I was suddenly feeling very tired. My eyes started drooping, yelling to be closed at once. I raised my phone to see a glimpse of the message before I dropped to the floor, darkness taking over my senses. The last thing I heard was Kit yelling my name and Joshua's panicking words.

Then I remembered what I saw in the phone: "_So shall it be_... _A new adventure begins."_

**That chapter took longer than I have anticipated. Anyways, now that I'm finished with this chapter I'm gonna start with another one, probably gonna be shorter than this one.**

**Thank you for reading. Please review. Let me here the opinion of the people. You can even tell me the mistakes I made in this chapter. I accept criticism, but not flames.**

**Edit: Just made some changes to some parts I wasn't satisfied with. No harm done.**

**Wyxlan_Lonestar out!**


	2. Chapter 2: What in the name of Gaia?

**The Excitement Begins**

**Sorry if this took so long! I had my exams and another college entrance exam right after it. It gave me a mental beating. But now I'm back and here is chapter Dos!**

**EDIT: ALSO I edited this chapter and the first one. There are some few changes in the first chapter. Check it out if you want. :)**

**Chapter 2: What in the name of Gaia!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy IX, its places, characters and strange animal people. I just own the OCs in this story.**

**Note: If you find numbers there, check out the end of the chapter for what it means.**

**-*Start*-**

Oh, my head… Bells…were…ringing in my head…stop it…going to kill my brain…

"Oh shit…" I groaned. "Someone shoot that guy ringing the bell…"

I slowly opened my eyes. Slowly because of the pain I have in my head, not just my head but also my whole body. It felt like I'm going to explode. My eyes blinked in pain, my vision was so blurry, and I thought I was seeing the sky. I lied on my back long enough for me to get the feeling back in my hands, my arms and my whole body. The pain was slowly dying now, but still lingering. Birds chirping and people chattering started to fill my ears. Wait, did I thought of it right? I heard birds chirping and people chattering? That isn't right. Well grammar wise I thought it's wrong, but that wasn't important enough. There were plenty of chirping and voices in my house! I didn't invite many people over, as far as I remembered, I only had two people with me. Also I didn't have any birds as pets. And when did I have my ceiling painted like the sky? Wait a tick…

I slowly sat up and looked at where I laid unconscious on. I was on top of a roof. "What the fuck?" I yelled so loud, I think it could have been heard by all of the people below and further away from my position. Where am I? What happened to my house? Why did my clothes look like it came from an artist's hands? The clothes looked fucking awesome, but this was kind of creepy at the moment. Why was that woman as fat as a hippo? Speaking of a hippo, that lady really looked like a real life hippo. Or was just somebody wearing a hippo costume as a mascot endorsing some food or campaigning to stop the hunting of hippos. Not really sure if the latter was true, but I didn't care. My hand quickly went on top of my head, feeling my Gatsby cap was still there thank God. Good thing that part didn't change.

I stood up and got a better look at the place than earlier. I saw a large castle beyond the town. Maybe the person in charge is there, and nothing said "important" than a glamorous castle that looked like it was built by hand by plenty of slaves. Surrounding me was a bunch of houses around the town. The houses kind of remind me of the Renaissance era pictures that I found in history books. There was also some man wearing some armor walking around. He wasn't the only one wearing armor. There was plenty of them walking, or patrolling, around with spears and swords. My eyes spotted some lady knights walking around in an iron helmet and some sort of one piece jumpsuit, patrolling further in the town. Either the town loved their female authority like their strippers or the police here had to cut the budget. And what was up with the old school clothing and the armor here? Was I in some sort of fair? But the town where I lived doesn't throw Renaissance fairs like they were rocks laid on the street. This was too confusing for my pain induced brain to handle.

As I turned around, my eyes widen in shock. A large flying cruise ship-looking thing was coming at me. I fell down on instinct and cowered in terror under my hat and my hands, muttering I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die on the rooftop tiles.

…

Shivering in terror beneath my cap, I refused to acknowledge or even look at the incoming ship again. After seeing that ship, I wouldn't think about looking back. I didn't want my face to go first.

…

This was a shameful way and place to die. Death by humongous ship crashing on me and on some old fashioned house. This was too cruel. Life was never this cruel except in these drama shows on televisions. Why, oh why was this so?

…

"_I'm going to die?"_ I repeated in my head, now filled with doubt instead of fear.

Slowly, my head rose from under my hands. The ship never came in contact to my shaking frame. Instead, it flew passed my terrified ass as I was shaking like a rattlesnake's tail. Good thing no one saw my cowardly state. Or else I was going to kill them by pulling out their skull out of their head and beat them to death with it. (1.)

"What in the hell was that?" I loudly thought as I flicked the peak of my cap. Maybe I would follow that thing to where it was going by using the rooftops. But when I took a step, I kinda knew it was a bad idea. As my foot landed on the roof tile, the tile became loose and made me trip. I landed back first and uncontrollably rolled down the roof. Instincts clearly told me to hold on to something, but that failed when every roof tile I held was loose and made me slip even further. "No, no, no, no, noooooo-!" I yelled before I blacked out with a loud thud.

-*FF*-

"_Mister…"_

Who? What the…

"_Are you okay?"_

I'm hearing voices again! YES! I get to fulfill something in my list (2.), number one hundred -eight, checked! Only a hundred and forty-nine to go.

A light tug of my shirt and the shaking of my shoulders made my mind aware that I wasn't totally dead; just more pain was physically inflicted.

"Uh… that hurts," I painfully groaned as I sat up. Feeling that someone was beside me, I glanced to my right as I saw a boy dressed in a heavy blue leather coat, a brown belt that stuck his puffy white and green striped pants tightly onto his small frame. He also wore a tall yellow hat that obscured his face, only two yellow orbs shined from the darkness that covered his face.

"A-are you okay, mister?" the boy asked, stuttering in the process. He helped me sat right up as pain continued to burn in my body.

"Yeah, I'm okay," I said with a small smile. "I just had a small fall." I looked up to see where I had fallen from, which made me cringe in pain. The roof where I fell from, wasn't just a "small fall", it was actually a long one. The house looked like it was three and a half story tall, taller than my own house actually. A small fall wasn't the exact phrase I'd use to describe that now.

"W-what were you doing up there?" he asked, once again stuttering in nervousness. I felt his hand that was on my back shaking, which I figured it out that he was nervous. I guess he's one of those kids who were a nervous wreck towards other people.

"I was…" I stopped mid sentence. What was I doing on top of a roof in a place that I didn't know? I only knew that I was in my house playing Final Fantasy IX with Joshua and Kit, and then I blacked out all of a sudden. I wake up and I ended up here… Oh goddammit! I can't think straight if there are questions that I don't know lingered in my head. Especially if I didn't even had any facts! Think Eliot! Why are you here? An answer is needed and I couldn't even think about it!

"I was just… sight-seeing." Insert face palm here. That was one of the worse answers that I have thought of! I am such a disgrace!

"Oh," he said. "Are you a traveler?"

…Did he just-Whew! He took it! This guy must think that I'm some sort of a lunatic, which I don't deny anyway. Anyway, just play along Eliot; we don't need any weird attention to be directed to us in any way.

Why am I talking to myself like I'm a different person? Who knows! That's one of the mysteries of my mind folks. My mind, my rules I guess.

"Yeah, I am. How did you know?"

"I-it because I, um travel too."

He nodded after he adjusted his hat. Him? A traveler? But he looked like he was a kid. No kid would travel the world that young, or in my town I guess. Kids there are wimps, scared about anything you describe creepy to them. I wouldn't blame them though, they're just kids. Maybe standing up was a good idea now. The pain is pretty much gone. And I need to check if I broke my legs or I'm paralyzed from the waist down. That was so pessimistic of me to have thought of that.

I stood up with the help of the young traveler then I stretched my body, making some cracking sounds in the process. Move you arms, legs, neck, everything. That was what the speaker of a skydivers group said at Career Day when any of us have a bad landing. I never thought I'd use it after I fell from a roof.

"Ah! That's better," I said after stretching the last of my muscles and moving the last of my limbs. "Not a thing broken."

"So you said you're a traveler? What's your name?" I asked.

"Um, V-vivi."

"Nice to meet you Vivi! I'm Eliot Fletcher. Eliot's just fine." I grinned as I introduced myself to the boy and offered my hand to him.

"Nice to meet you too, Eliot," He beamed with confidence. Vivi took my hand and we shook hands, making him the first person I met in this unknown flashback styled location.

"It's getting late," Vivi stated. "I need to go get my ticket checked."

"For what?"

"Um, for the play."

Play? Did I go back in time? Don't they have any movie theaters here?

"You don't know?" he asked. I shook my head. "Today is the sixteenth birthday of Princess Garnet Til Alexandros XVII. There's a play called 'I Want To Be Your Canary' is going to be performed for the princess."

"Ah," was my only reply to him. He waved goodbye to me and headed off to the Ticket Master. Nice boy, love to meet him again. Vivi, what an interesting name. Like from Final Fan-

Wait! Vivi? Garnet Til Alexandros XVII? I Want To Be Your Canary? Those are…that can't…unless…Alexandria…that ship…my house…PlayStation...electricity…reverse polarity (?)…

I'm in Final Fantasy IX?

"Hey!" someone yelled. I glanced to my right to see a hippo woman glaring at me. "Stop yelling. Disturbing much?"

I turned my back at the woman, ignoring her. This can't be happening! I was inside of a video game, which was not possible. There was too much to explain, too many to be thought. In fact, nothing here is possible! Logically, scientifically, and realistically impossible!

…

Who was I kidding? This was GREAT!

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" the lady yelled.

I turned back to the woman. "Do you think I care?" I yelled back, to her shock. "Does the phrase "Freedom of Speech" mean anything to you? Oh yeah, try getting your clothes checked lady! You look like something a cat didn't bother to eat after it spitted you out!" The face of the woman was frozen in shock. She was speechless at me. I flicked my bangs with the brim of my cap at her and smirked, but that was quickly dropped as I started to flee before she got angry and started to throw things at me.

This was so surreal! I never thought this could happen. Yes, yes, this was incredible. But I have to look at the facts. I was in a game that I was going to play with my friends. Some freak accident happened in my house. Now, I was in Alexandria for some unknown reason. Nothing can explain this-

My friends, I was playing with my friends, Joshua and Kit. Where are they? Oh my god! I forgot I had friends!

…Oh what the heck. I was inside a game. I wouldn't let negativity get to me now. I need to enjoy this while it lasts.

Then, a yelp was heard in front of me. I snapped out of my short thoughts and quickly apologized. "I'm sorry, didn't see you there." I looked down and I saw a familiar little boy and a yellow hat.

"Vivi?" I stammered. He turned around. It was our own favorite Black Mage.

"H-hi…" Vivi muttered. I waved at him as I greeted him. It looked like he was talking to the Ticket Master at the moment of bumping onto him. Maybe it would be a good idea to let them talk. So I glanced around the very interesting surroundings. There was three little girls playing jump rope a few meters to the left from here, the entrance to the play up ahead was guarded by two Alexandrian soldiers, the overbooked inn with a man leaving in anger, the closed weapon shop preparing for the play, flower booths that sold some supplies for the gardening ladies in Alexandria. Too bad my mother wasn't here. She liked gardening as much as travelled the world with my father in their so called "business trips". I thought of their business trips as their vacation away from their own son. But, that was not for me to ponder on. I have my own business vacation, in Gaia!

"Hello young man," greeted the Ticket Master, which snapped me out of my thoughts and quickly looked at him. "Are you here to see the wondrous play: I Want to be Your Canary?"

I shook my head in reply. "No, sir. I'm just a wandering traveler, always wandering about." Great, I just made myself look like an idiot in front of the awesome black mage of the game, just great.

The Ticket Master looked down from the booth. "How about you? Can I help you?" he asked with the friendliest voice humanly possible. Oh wait, scratch that.

"Uh… Umm…" the young black mage stuttered as he gave his ticket to the animal-looking man. The Ticket Master raised a brow upon seeing the ticket. He looked back at Vivi, then me, then Vivi again.

"What's this?" he asked, "There's something odd about this ticket." He took a closer look at the ticket, with each inch closer he got, the higher his eyebrows went. It almost made me laugh, but I suppressed it with a hand, to avoid getting eaten by a lion-slash-ticketmaster.

"Why, it's another fake!" he inquired. "I've seen so many today."

Vivi's head dejectedly fell. "Nooooo!" Darn, I'd hate to be him right now. He got duped by some smart, cunning dude. Why am I complimenting someone that stole some money from a kid? A comforting hand fell on his shoulders. I actually had to bend forward (Hey! No dirty thoughts!) to be able to reach his shoulder. We were going to see that play anyway, but I still had to support him. I would bring him with me and use that passage in the game that he uses with Puck.

"Now, now, don't cry," the Ticketmaster said, trying to console the boy. "I know how you must feel. Here, I'll give you these. Do try to cheer up now, hmm?

Being the nice ticketmaster he was, he handed Vivi three Tetra cards, those cards being a Fang, a Goblin, and a Skeleton. I don't really have any experience playing this card game when I was playing the game. There was nothing to gain in that kind of stuff, for me anyway, or there were and I wasn't told so.

"Talk to Alleyway Jack to learn more about the cards," said the Ticketmaster, "Good luck lads!" He waved to us as we walked away from the booth. Vivi was still looking at the cards; maybe this was his first time seeing monsters in cards. Now, I'm not gonna ask: Vivi, have you seen cards like this before?

"A-actually, it is. I have only h-heard them from my grandpa." He said.

"O-oh, really? Well, I bet you're going to have…fun with this game." I managed to say. Even in Gaia, I still say things that should stay in my head. I think I had this little hole in my head that lets my thoughts out, or I just love saying things out loud.

"So, you want to look for Alleyway Jack?" I asked the black mage. He nodded.

Oh well, at least I was gonna have fun while I was here. Nothing would gonna ruin this day!

-*End*-

**Chapter 2…*sips tea* DOWN! (3.)**

**Tell me what you guys think. Review please! I accept criticism, not flames.**

**WyxlanLonestar out!**

_**It is a reference to Tex from Red vs. Blue. It's what she did to one of Church's teammates in Sidewinder.**_

_**Remember the movie, The Bucket List? I love that movie so I inserted a little reference to it.**_

_**That reference is to MoogleFTW from Youtube! He loves his tea very much.**_


	3. Chapter 3: Greener Pasteurs

**Title: The Excitement Begins**

**Hey everyone! I'm back with another chapter! It's a little longer than before. I hope it's up to standards. **

**Chapter 3: Introduced to "Greener Pastures"**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy; I just own a copy for my consoles. And I own the OC btw!**

**Edit: This chapter has been edited like the other chapter, heavily edited! Now, onto the story!**

**-*Start Chapter*-**

After we decided to look to Alleyway Jack, we headed to the alleyway where we were supposed to meet the guy and someone very annoying, that is until Vivi got distracted. I looked over where he was looking, low and behold! He was looking at the little girls playing jump rope with each other. It looked like this was his first time to see three little girls play jump rope, or maybe the first time to see the jump rope game itself. From what he said earlier, he was a traveller. So he must have not seen it in his travels. Also, he was from Treno if I was not mistaken. That city was full to the brim of nobles and high economy shit in the game...probably. But then I remembered that it was not my business to do background checks.

The little girls saw Vivi looking at them. The girls smiled and giggled at each other. Vivi started stammering, as usual. They motioned for him to come. He looked at me, like he was asking for permission from me.

"Don't let me stop you. Go on," I said. He approached the girls, who had smiles on their face, happy that they had someone new to play with.

"H-hello," he greeted with a stutter, waving his gloved hand at them in a nice gesture.

"Do you want to try?" I heard one of them ask. The middle girl stepped outside away from the jump rope, encouraging the black mage to play. He nodded and approached the rope in the middle. They gave the signal and the game started.

Watching Vivi play jump rope was like looking back at my childhood, playing games with your friends. Remember the days when you were so naive that you didn't have a care in the world? Only you, your game and your friends were the only thing important. Ah, so nostalgic, wasn't it? Couldn't get enough of it, I suppose. At least this was kinda fun at the start. Not until we were going to face some monsters and carnivorous plants at the Evil Forest, next the ice Cave, which I remembered with a shiver, and those Black Waltzes... Darn, maybe I shouldn't have thought of that part. It was making me nervous.

"Hey mister!" The call snapped me out of my head and back to the so called "reality". I looked at the girls; one of them helped Vivi to his feet. From that, I was guessing he was done.

"Yes?" I asked, tipping my cap to them like a cowboy does in the telly...What, I've seen those before and they do do it.

"Do you wanna try?" The girls looked at me. Even Vivi looked at me. Wait, did I have something on my face? Not that I remembered.

I shook my head, "No, thank you."

"Aw, c'mon mister! Its fun!" said one of the girls.

"Uh, sorry. I'm too old for jump rope."

"Please!" the other two girls begged. Both even had the puppy dog eyes. Not the puppy dog eyes! Must...resist...dreaded puppy dog eyes!

I turned my head and saw Vivi looking at me. He had his hands clasped together and his eyes looked softer than before. "Please..." he muttered, over and over again. Oh, come on! Not you too, Vivi!

I sighed in surrender. "Oh, alright! Just because you girls asked nicely." The girls jumped in happiness and Vivi's eyes were full of joy. Sigh, the things you do for progress...

The two girls pulled me into the jump rope and started to prepare as I stood in the middle. Vivi and the other girl watched at the side. In a suprise, I only lasted for eleven jumps. I blamed my height, I'm so tall I had to hold my cap, duck the rope, jump and repeat. I bet Vivi did better than me.

"Would you like to try some more?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No thank you. We have a play to get to." And with that, we waved goodbye to the little girls and headed down the alley.

"Wasn't that fun, Vivi?" I asked the black mage.

"Yeah, it was fun," he replied, "Brings back a lot of -" although he was going to say something more, he was typically interrupted by his trip to the ground. Almost after he tripped, I looked up to see someone hammering a broken sign.

"Blast it!" Dante the Signmaker, the large hippo-man on top of the ladder, yelled in frustration as the sign fell off. He climbed down from the ladder. "Hey! You made me miss, you little klutz!" he yelled at Vivi.

I stepped forward and defended the mage. "Don't blame him, you jerk!" I told the hippo with a fist waving in the air. Vivi stood up and fixed his hat. Dante flinched. He recovered and grumbled words under his breath as he climbed back up the ladder and fixed the sign.

"Whew! That should do it," he said and went down the ladder. "Well, it's been a long day." he stretched his arms and walked away, not before eying both of us. Right on cue, a familiar rat prince arrived on the scene. He looked behind him and then ran to us.

"Hey, you! Shrimps!" he called to us. Vivi jumped in surprise while I only raised my brow at the rat.

"Excuse me?" I interrupted him, "Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately? You're not exactly the tallest guy in this alley."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever kid," he dismissed my words with a wave of his hand as I growled under my breath. Control yourself, Eliot. As much as I want to strangle that rat, I want to avoid any complications with the Burmecian people. Also I didn't want to screw this up, which was my own specialty, being given of an opportunity and screwing up said opportunity.

"So, you're the one with the phony ticket. I saw the guy tell you it was fake." he continued the conversation, pointing to Vivi.

"Y-yeah," he admitted innocently, "It's a fake." Puck chuckled at the mage.

The Burmecian prince turned to me and said, "How bout you smallfry? I didn't see ya give the Ticketmaster a ticket."

I balled my hand into a fist but quickly hid it behind me. Calm, calm, I am calm. I could kill you any day after the "incident" in Burmecia. My lips formed a fake smile and replied, "That's because I don't have one."

My lips twitched and Puck managed to see this. "Man, you're weird," he said. It was my eye's' turn to twitch. If you weren't needed for this, I would have terminated you already.

Puck looked at me. "What did you say?" the Burmecian prince asked.

Shit, I must have done it again!

"Um, I said why are you here?"

"LIAR!" he accused me. Excuse me? I've been accused of many things. Narcissistic, yes, obnoxious, yes, thief, sometimes, cheater, only once when I was absent for one day and the next day we had a surprise test, but not once I have been called a liar.

"Moving on," I tried to change the subject. ""Why are you here?"

"I could get ya guys in the play," he said. Vivi's attention was full on concentrated on the prince. He wanted to see the play, and he would do anything. I, on the other hand, already knew how to get in. Maybe I could have shown this to him, but this would ruin the first friendship that he would have in the game. So I decided to let the plot take its course and not change it.

"B-but how?" Vivi asked.

"I'll let you see the show if you become my slaves."

Alright, that is it! I am not going to stand there and accept an _offer_ to be a slave! "I will not-"

"Alright," Vivi said before I was able to finish my objection.

"But-" I tried to say something to Vivi. But apparently, it was already decided.

"Great!" Puck exclaimed, happy he was with the new slaves he just 'acquired', "For your first assignment, you two go stand over there and see if someone's comin'!"

Vivi meekly followed while I begrudgingly slouched and followed the black mage at the end, searching for the nothing that would come in this alley.

"All clear?"

"Yeah, it's clear!" I answered, not really caring for what we were doing. But, for the sake of progress, I will do it.

"Awesome! Engaging according to mission parameters!" That would have been cool, if it was coming from a guy who worked as a spy. Beggars can't be choosers, and at the moment, I didn't have a choice. The three of us huddled up near the ladder once again after the quick inspection. Puck picked up the ladder and ran to the side of the alley he had come from. I'd always imagined how a boy that small could carry a ladder three times larger than him. As I was about to follow the monkey prince, I saw Vivi turn around and go the other way.

"Vivi, Puck's going this way!" I called, pointing to the other direction. But the black mage just continued until a man in an orange coat and a red hat had walked in the alley.

"Umm, excuse me," Vivi said to the man, "but is your name Alleyway Jack?"

The man blinked at Vivi, surprised that his identity has been compromised without giving a single clue to who he was. Also I might want to add that I didn't forget that was Alleyway Jack, it was just I hated the card game in this game, therefore hating him. It was very straightforward for me so don't make me explain. Yes I knew it was for spending time and it "is fun" as I was told by the Final Fantasy diehards at my school, but they didn't know that I already played this part and it made no such sense to have a card game inside a Final Fantasy game. You might as well not call it Final Fantasy, might as well call it Yu-Gi-Oh Final Fantasy minus the magic and trap cards, but instead you get to capture other cards as your own cards. I'm feeling the hate already.

"Huh? How did you know my name?" he questioned the black mage. Then he a smirk appeared on his face. "If you know who I am, you probably want to challenge me to a card game, huh?"

Vivi shook his head at Alleyway Jack. The man, in surprise, dropped the smirk on his face and replaced it with a confused look. Then an idea had struck the man.

"What? You don't know how to play?" Vivi nodded his head at him. "And you want me to teach you?" The mage then nodded again.

"Well," the man seemed to have hesitated, but he relented, "Why not? I already finished one job anyway. Follow me, kid!"

Alleyway Jack started leaving with Vivi following him. I was about to stop him, but then I remembered that this was part of the game...somehow, not really a major part, but a tutorial of sorts. There was no harm in doing this, but it would be one long tutorial on my part, since they'll be playing in a round, in which I hope not to happen. So instead of stopping him, I found myself joining Vivi.

We followed Alleyway Jack into the Tavern we passed on the way to the Ticket Master. Both of us took a seat as the man got himself a drink. I turned to Vivi and asked him, "You really want to learn this game, Viv?" He nodded in reply. "They say i-its fun. And I don't want t-the cards the Ticket Master gave me go to w-waste." He said with less stutter than before.

"Oh, it's fun," I encouraged him, although I hated the whole thing. But as someone had said to others before myself, from whoever said that. "I know from seeing these card games, they are really fun. It's a great game to play to let time tick away." I smiled to keep this sincere enough. My guts were kinda boiling from this lie I was spewing. But Vivi needed this more than me. He was a good kid. Better than me in this moment.

"Okay, let's start with the basics..." Alleyway Jack started.

I raised my finger to the bartender, "Do you have milk or lemonade?"

"Coming right up, sir!" the blonde bartender said as he fetched a glass for me. Might as well drink something while we're here.

**-*FF*- -*FF*- -*FF*-**

"...oh damn..." I groaned as I lifted my head. That was a bad move, as a searing headache found itself embedded in my head. My hand shot up to my head, grabbing it in pain. "Shit..." I muttered groggily. I tried to shake the headache away, another bad move in my part as it became more painful than before. And for some reason, my mouth tastes like damaged carpet from the garbage. Don't ask why I know this. I clutched my cap wearing head as the pain continued.

The bartender walked in front of me. He gave me a glass of water and another glass of green liquid.

"What the hell is this?" I groggily asked him.

"Its water and some mouth wash," he replied, wiping his hands with a clean cloth from his pocket. I eyed him wearily as I took the glass of water and drank it with one gulp. The mouthwash was the next to enter my mouth. The minty taste of the mouthwash was slowly sticking in my mouth as I let the liquid flow in my mouth. For about half a minute, I gargled as long as I wanted. The bartender gave me a small bucket, which is where I had spitted the minty mouthwash.

"Thanks for that."

"No problem. Just doing my job. Nice doing business with you" he said, leaving me to converse with another customer at the other side of the bar. I looked to my side, seeing Vivi and Alleyway Jack still in tutorial mode. I hope that it was nearing its end.

"Do you understand?" he asked, signalling the end of the tutorial. Thank the lords, which I didn't know if it existed. Finally the tutorial was almost over! Now we could finally leave and... uh oh. I forgot that we had a plan with Puck. We better make this fast.

Vivi nodded, "I think I understand."

"This is the only town where I'm called Alleyway Jack," he said, "I go by other names elsewhere. They're also aliases, of course. You want to know my real name? I'll tell you when you get better."

Heh, I wonder what kind of reaction he would have if I yelled out his real name? It would be interesting to see what I would be able to see. Should I? But then that would spoil Vivi and some other card playing people in the Tavern. Also that could start a riot that would defend Alleyway Jack and get revenge because I spoiled it to them. Okay, after thinking about that, I won't spoil it. I don't want to die in the hands of a card player, another awful death in this place.

Hmm, I wonder what the bartender meant by business? What the hell happened? I didn't remember falling asleep. Last thing I remembered was ordering my drink. Ordering...my...drink...Oh son of a bitch!

I raised my hand, calling the bartender. He approached me while wiping a glass in his hand. "Yes, sir?"

"What the hell?" I yelled, so loud that it surprised the bartender, stopped every gulp that was being made and interrupted Alleyway Jack. Vivi looked at me with worry in his eyes. Embarrassed, I chuckled and said, "N-nothing's going on here. Sorry for the interruption." With that, everything continued as it had before, which was weird for me to see it before my eyes. It looked like one of that cartoons-wait a minute! Enough of this for a moment!

"What did you serve me?" I demanded the bartender, who was strangely calm about this situation.

"Tequila," he replied nonchalantly. My eyes widened.

"You served an under aged boy, not just a glass of tequila, but **NINE** glasses of_ tequila_! What the _fuck_ is wrong with you!" I told him, in a hushed manner to avoid any more unneeded interruptions. "I asked for milk OR lemonade, goddammit!"

"Eliot," Vivi called me, making me stop my 'talk' with the bartender. "I'm gonna wait outside."

"O-okay," I said, "I'll just finish up here."

Vivi nodded and he stood up, leaving the Tavern. Where was I? Oh yeah! I grabbed the bartender by the collar, earning me looks from the other patrons.

"You know, you should keep in mind that you should give what the costumer had asked," I said to the blonde bartender.

"I did." He replied, still calm as I held his collar tighter, wishing it was his neck instead.

I narrowed my eyes at the bartender. "I asked for milk or lemonade." I growled.

"That's what I call my tequila in this Tavern."

I slapped my forehead in disbelief. That sounded sick to me. I was not gonna give myself further indemnification so I followed Vivi outside the Tavern.

"Have a nice day!" Yeah, nice day my introduced-to-liquor-and-still-drunk ass! It was a good thing that a kid was waiting outside! If there weren't, I could have beaten your ass to a bloody pulp.

"I'd like to see you try, kid!" the bartender yelled with a smirk on his face. I left the Tavern, with thoughts of cold murder. This is a teen game. There is no reason to turn it into a Rated-R game. Now how am I supposed to lead a straight edge life? I already raised my right hand and recited the pledge.

Vivi and I decided to return to Puck and his ladder, well not really his. We just hoped that he didn't mind us learning a few things. One, card games and two, avoid ordering milk or lemonade.

**-*End of Chapter*-**

**Tell me what you think in the reviews. If I missed a grammatical error, changed POVs, anything, tell me in the reviews.**

**I still accept criticism, not flames.**

**Wyxlan_Lonestar out!**


	4. Chapter 4: E and C

**Title: The Excitement Begins**

**The fourth chapter is here and I feel excited for this! The trio is now almost in the castle. Can they do it without any screw ups? That would be up to themselves.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy IX, if I did, it would have been a different game.**

**Chapter 4 – Encouragements and Chimneys **

**-*Start Chapter *-**

Vivi and I hurriedly turned left, near the three little girls playing jump rope. We waved as we passed by them and into the alley where we had met the annoying mouse; well that was my own description to him. We again turned and ran straight to the tower where I knew Puck was waiting for us. I reached the place first, with Vivi catching his breath and jogged behind me. Both of us arrived at the bell tower, tired and out of breath. There waiting for us was a fuming Puck waiting to greet us. And he didn't look like a happy camper, if there was a mouse-kid in a camp.

"What the hell?" he yelled, swinging the ladder at me. I held my cap and ducked, the ladder almost hitting me on the side of the head. "What took so long?" Well, that wasn't really a heart warming hello, was it? I'd imagine it with more happy and less injury.

Vivi tried his best to explain why we were late. Emphasis on tried. He couldn't form a understandable sentence with the stammering of his, which was understandable in his case. "W-well, we were j-just-" See what I meant?

I stepped forward, sparing Vivi on trying to defend us. "We were just helping out this guy we encountered," I said, cutting off Vivi, "You see this guy needed something. Being the Good Samaritans that we are, we decided to lend a hand."

Puck looked at me like he was a curious security guard looking at a delinquent in a 7-11, searching for a small shred of guilt on me. Of course, I wouldn't blame him. He was probably having the right impression that I was lying to his face. That was a lie I just made up before we got here. There was no time to carefully think of a better one. Rushing our way here was also a factor in my "thinking time". And if you add fatigue, well I should call it by how I it really was, being a little drunk with a slight chance of hangover. I imagined myself being drunk when I was about twenty-three years old, but I guess that would happen really often now after getting my first taste of alcohol. Oh how I hate myself for thinking that alcohol is good while watching those movies. They were all lies! I need more mouthwash! Better yet, a bar of soap will do!

"I don't know," he said wearily at me, "I think your lyin' to me."

"Me? Lie to you? How could I lie to someone who I have given my full devotion to?" I questioned him dramatically, almost too dramatically. Now to make it more convincing. My hand touched my chest to add the pained posture I showed. "You, sir have inflicted pain and distrust in my heart! "

"E-eliot!" Vivi was surprised at my lie, especially at my "acting". I was surprised myself, actually. I didn't think that I would be good at faking this. Maybe when I get older, I'd be an actor. But I'd need to go to acting school first. I thought my skills could use some shining up.

Puck started waving his hands at me, without the ladder this time. "Okay, okay! Stop yer whinin' and start climbing!" he ordered as he pointed at the other ladder leading to the rooftops. Vivi went to the ladder and started to climb, until something dropped on him from getting started.

That said dropped object was a moogle! It dropped on the Black Mage before he even got his hands on the ladder. Vivi fell back before the moogle squashed him. Then a short talk about the save function from the moogle began.

"If you want to save game," Kupo started his tutorial, "just ask us moogles, kupo! And you can regain health if you have a Tent, kupo! You understand?" How informative! I would yell Oh really if I didn't knew that before. And believe me, I did yell that when I heard this the first time I played the game. It was pretty shocking for a ten year old boy who was recently introduced to RPGs.

Both of us nodded. "Glad I can help, kupo!" Not that I needed the help. But again, the Vivi excuse as I have repeated so many times now.

"I forgot to tell you that it's very dangerous," he said, "My bad. Now for some upward mobility!"

Yeah right, my bad. How about I shove that ladder down your trap? Then we'll see whose bad it will be.

"Hey!" Puck called to me, once again breaking my chain of thought, "You're next, buddy!"

Huh? Wasn't Vivi supposed to...

I looked beside me and Vivi was gone. Upwards, Vivi was already there with Puck, observing the rooftops. Shit, he was a fast climber, and I didn't even notice him climb up! I didn't know if I would curse at that or praise that. So I dropped it and followed the two up, and fast. And why is that? So I didn't have to get myself in a talk with Kupo and the now arriving Stilzkin when I looked back. No need to get myself in a tear jerking moment with the moogles. But I wouldn't call that tear jerking since, you know, not very tear jerking-ish...Yeah that was my explanation.

"Hey slave! I thought I ordered you to get up here! Stop daydreaming in the middle of the ladder and get up here already!" Puck yelled at me inside the tower. Jeez, keep yelling and you would find yourself climbing up the clouds. Wait, how did Puck get up without me noticing? And when did he get up there? These two are really fast when you don't have your eyes on them.

I started my ascent, but I felt something tug my jacket. "Wait!" Kupo yelled. I looked down and saw the moogle reaching me something. "I know you guys will be going. Can you give this to Monty, kupo?" the moogle asked as it held out a small envelope to me.

No, because I'm not going for a 100% walkthrough and you are not my father? "Sure," I said as I took the letter from him and pocketed the small envelope. What? Did you really think I would say no, or even the first sentence of this paragraph? I'm not that bad. I can be decent when I want to. There is a thin line of being a jerk and being decent, I'd like to think that I walk on the line. Now, from what I remembered, Monty would be somewhere later on. Is it in the castle? I do not remember at the moment.

"Thank you, kupo!" the moogle said with a bow, scratch that, with a dozen bows. I nodded at him-er her...it, before I started climbing again.

"Hurry up!" Puck yelled again. Sonuvabi-if I heard another word from that guy, I was not going to be responsible for turning this game into an M-rated game. When I reached the top, Puck was tapping his foot angrily at me and Vivi was admiring the great view from in the tower. "Took your time, slave."

I sighed, ignoring his insufferable tone, "So, what's the plan?"

"The same plan we're still doing, duh!" he said as Vivi fixed his hat, "The play's gonna start if we don't hurry!" With that, Puck, with ladder over head, turned and hurriedly ran onto the seemingly endless trail of rooftops that was connected with wooden planks hammered down like a mini bridge. Vivi glanced at me, looking a little worried, before we followed the rat with the ladder. When I looked forward, I saw why. "Come on! Let's go!" Puck said as he crossed the 'sturdy' plank. But to me, it looked weak enough to break in just a step. Maybe it was because Puck was light, but I doubted that since he had a ladder over his head. "Come on! Get over here!" he yelled at as when he saw the both of us stop in front of the plank.

"Lemme guess... You two are afraid of heights, aren't you?" Oh gee, what gave you that idea Puck? Did the hint of us staring at the plank or was the shaking of the mage was enough for you? Vivi nodded at him. I would say no, but after that _small_ fall earlier, it gave me a _small_ thought that I am maybe _a little_ afraid of heights. That's what a fall that could paralyze someone from the waist down can do to you.

"It's okay!" he told us, "Just pretend your on the ground!"

Oh yeah, like that was going to help! You're just saying that because you're in the safety of a rooftop! "Oh, quit your whining, slave number 2!" The rat prince yelled at me, somehow knowing what I was thinking, I just unconsciously said what I was thinking, like the last few time I already done it, didn't I.

Carefully, Vivi slowly walked on the wooden plank, creaking with each step. The soon-to-be-recognized black mage was able to cross the plank. I, on the other hand, struggled to do the same. Not only that I had to will myself to walk on a small plank that could break anytime, I had to not look down and do it fast enough so we could catch the show. And I would like to point out that my 'boss' kept on yelling "Faster, faster!"which was not really good encouragement I'd tell you.

I finally managed to cross it. One down, probably a dozen more to go. Wasn't that peachy? Life was not very peachy if you wanted to see a show illegally, as you can see by the display of us three.

The sun started to set on the city, already halfway down the horizon. "Come on, already! We're runnin' out of time!"

Puck once again turned, ran first and quickly crossed another plank. We, once again, stopped in front of the plank. I know, this could be a repeating cycle that would repeat itself until we get over to the castle. I just hope this was worth crossing the rooftops.

"Not again..." Puck groaned, slapping his forehead, "Don't worry! It won't fall!"

Yeah, right. And I am the brother of the princess, who was kidnapped and brainwashed to kill her. Not really. See, my sarcasm button was on, if you haven't noticed it yet.

"I'll go first."I said. Courageously, I walked up to the plank and started crossing it. And my gut was praying to whatever god resided in this world to not let the plank fall. Good thing it didn't fall as I was half-way the plank. And I was across in no time. You could see me kissing the rooftop, thankful that the plank didn't fall below me. But I really didn't do that, because it would make me look weird. Now it was the mage's turn. However, Vivi was nervous about crossing the second one.

"You can do it!" I cheered for him. He started his walk down the plank. "Just don't look down! Nothing's gonna happen."

Oh how cruel fate was when I just said that. The plank under Vivi creaked and began to break. The black mage managed to jump off the board before it completely broke. He landed right beside me. I caught the mage before he fell onto the roof.

"Are you alright?" I worriedly asked him. He let out a breath and nodded. Vivi stood up, dusted off his clothes and fixed his hat. Thank god he was okay. I still can't believe that happened to him, not me. My weight on the board should have triggered the board. But still, that was still weird, right? He was surely lighter than me. I guess gravity worked in different ways here.

Puck turned to us and said, almost impatiently, "No point in worrying now, right?"

He and Vivi continued on the rooftops, with Vivi almost running on the boards rather than walking slowly on it like before. That was fast, right? Maybe he got over it? Maybe...

I looked around to see if they were watching, and if there were other people were on the rooftops. Then I turned to the chimney behind me. Quickly, I started looking for some loot inside the chimney. I still remembered where the gold, or gil, were located. This could help me later on. It would, definitely since I was broke to start with. After feeling the chimney (not that way, perverts), I found 29 measly gil. Meh, its better than nothing, I suppose.

I walked up to Vivi and Puck, who turned around to us. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot!" he exclaimed, "I don't even know your names!"

"I-i'm Vivi," the black mage introduced himself.

"So, your name's Vivi, huh?" he said, "Kinda funny name..." Vivi is a cool name for a black mage. If you made fun of it, I would beat you with that ladder you are carrying over your head. "How 'bout you?"

"Eliot..." I said, pulling the peak of my Gatsby cap down, showing my less than enthusiastic introduction.

"Weird name..." he commented. "My name's Puck! Pleased to meetcha!" Not really. Puck is even a weirder name. Who would name their child to a name that is being beaten around in a sport made by Canadians? No offense to the Canadians, they're great people as I have met some wonderful people myself. And my name is definitely not weird! My name is just average, thank you very much.

...Average...meh, average is boring. But it is definitely cooler than Puck.

**-*FF*- -*FF*- -*FF*-**

Puck and Vivi took off and I took my time going to the end, since there were plenty of money in the rooftops and hidden treasure, not really that well hidden, to steal. Wow, I sounded like a common thief. I might as well start a different life since I literally am in a different world. I managed to scavenge 92 gil from one rooftop and 63 gil from another. I didn't really figure it out why people in Alexandria hid their money in their chimneys. Maybe they wanted to bribe Santa for better gifts, be given more gifts, or not to be given any coal this Christmas, if he even existed in this world.

After the hidden treasure hunt, I quickly followed Puck and Vivi near the edge of the castle wall. They didn't seem to notice me as Puck started to talk.

"Whew...we finally made it!" Puck exclaimed. He threw the ladder onto the platform across the roof, making a make shift bridge between them. "After this wall, we'll be inside the castle!" I could see Vivi being excited. He wanted to see the play, using originally his ticket. But the ticket that was sold to him was a fake. Now he could see the movie, along with the new friends he has made along the way. Along with his first friend, Puck and myself of course. "C'mon! Let's go!"

I just hope we don't get spotted by those guards, or be followed by the Alexandrian guards...I probably jinxed us.

Damn thought had to be in my brain! In my paranoia, I looked behind me, inspecting if someone was following the three of us. Good thing no one was there. But that was not good enough. I inspected the surroundings, feeding my paranoia with encouragement that nothing was here except us. But I had a feeling someone was here with us. Just when I was content with my self-encouragement, I heard something rustle with the wind. I flinched and stopped on the spot. I looked around again if there really was something hiding around.

"Wherever you are, show yourself!" I told the unseen being that was, of course, unseen. No one replied, the usual thing to happen if someone was trying to sneak up to someone. This was one of those times that I wanted Spidey Senses. It would really help to keep those unsuspecting events from happening or in this case hidden beings from yelling peek-a-boo at my back.

"Eliot?" Vivi called. He approached me as I was still looking around the area, not minding the mage. "Is something the matter?"

I would say yes, but I didn't want to worry him about it. "Nothing, just thought that I had forgotten something."

"What did you forget?" he asked.

"I didn't pay for the drink earlier." I lied. Technically, I wasn't lying since I did forget to pay for it. But then again, the bartender gave me tequila instead of what I wanted. It did sound fair, right? After all, it still left a bad taste in my mouth even after being given mouthwash to drown the taste. I could even still think of drinking the horrible drink. Shudder...

"But that's not important now, Viv." I said, reassuring him. "Come on, let's get to the show." I followed Vivi into the castle walls and to the show. I only heard good things about this play, so it better live up to its hype.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

The boy with the Gatsby cap followed the small boy and the rat kid into the castle. He was still tense, as he still felt that someone was observing him. In a sense, Eliot was right earlier. It proved that his paranoia was giving him the right feeling as someone was indeed following him. A raven haired boy wearing a cloak walked above the wall, appearing from his hiding spot when he uncontrollable made a sound, almost leading to his detection. He effortlessly jumped onto the platform where the rat had laid the ladder, his auburn brown eyes following the trio.

"Eliot," he said out loud, but not loud enough for the trio to hear. He silently let out a sigh into the wind. His face formed a determined look before the cloaked boy followed them to the entrance to the show.

**-*End of Chapter*-**

**Oooh, this sounds interesting! Someone was actually waiting for them there. Who could this guy be? Stay tuned and find out in the next chapter!**

**Reviews give me determination to finish a story. And it would help in my development. Don't be afraid to give out criticism!**

**Wyxlan out!**


	5. Chapter 5:  Planning Stages

**Title: The Excitement Begins**

**Now for something completely different! We're going to change something in this story, don't worry folks, this change is intended. As I have already planned this from the beginning. Just try to understand.**

**And I'm sorry for posting this with a LONG delay! I had been writing this story without a plot so far, so I made it clear to myself that I write a plot that would at least lead to Lindblum. It took me at least 9 pages to get to Lindblum, and just the plot not including the important terms and stuff. That's what caused the delay. But don't despair! I have the solution! A very long chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I really do not own Final Fantasy IX, even I to XIII and all of its sub games. But I do own the OC.**

**Side note: Also, I'm indicating something before the chapter start at the next chapter. You'll figure it out easily. Edits for the previous chapters will occur after I post the next chapter.**

**Chapter 5 – Planning Stages**

***-Start Chapter-***

Ow, it hurts...

My head...Why did it feel like it was a vibrating controller? And that was not in a good way. In pain, so...much...pain.

"Hey. Are you alright?" a voice asked worriedly. My eyes fluttered open, seeing multiple blurs of a person hovering above me. The blur kept saying something about my health and my safety. Then it waved something in front of my pained vision. I didn't know why he was talking about it even if it was none of his business, but this time I'd make an exception.

"Excuse me, please stop yelling," I politely said, holding my head in pain. The blur held out something, some sort of object on front of me. Shaking my head a little, the blurriness started to fade away. The blur looked clearer now and the object in front of me was a hand.

"Are you alright?" the blonde man asked me. He looked very concerned, either it was directed at my condition or for doing something that I didn't even recall. I nodded hesitantly. I took his gloved hand. He pulled himself which made me get up on my feet.

"Yes, I'm alright," I replied. Argh, my head still hurts. Did something hit my head before I became unconscious? What happened in Eliot's house? Speaking of Eliot, where was Eliot? And where was Kit for that matter. And Eliot's house...this was not his house anymore. I was in a room with that looked like it was not even cleaned for a long time, or even thought of cleaning the place. If this was my room, my uncle would kill me. It was a good thing he was still in his office in this moment of time. Work must have kept him busy. But I wasn't worried for him; I was worried for myself at the moment. And I was more worried for my friends.

"Dude, are you listening?" the blonde asked me, breaking my thoughts and back to the reality I was in.

"Oh, I'm sorry about that..." I trailed off, "What's your name again? I'm afraid I didn't catch that."

"Name's Zidane!" he introduced with a cheerful smile. Zidane...what a very interesting name. It sounded like some name that could come from a game. It really did, didn't it? Maybe Eliot would know that. He has plenty of these games so it would only take him a matter of moments before he would recognize it.

A game... was it really? The guy had blonde hair, blue eyes, and strange renaissance clothing. Wait for a bit, renaissance clothing? Was today the start of the Renaissance fair? I was not aware of that. Eliot and Kit would love that. Well, only Kit. Eliot would usually be bored out of his mind. But something broke that thought, a yellow tail waved behind Zidane. A freaking tail that you would find with a monkey! But how did he have that tail? This really was something extraordinary. I bet Eliot would love to see this right now, just to break from boredom, and for Kit to shriek in disturbance.

"Hey, stop staring at my tail. It's rude." Zidane must have noticed me staring at his tail.

"I'm sorry," I apologized, rubbing my neck in embarrassment, "That is...much unexpected to see that kind of...thing." Unexpected as it is, no one in town didn't have a freaking tail, especially in the Renaissance fairs! I must be somewhere outside town. Maybe I was kidnapped? That couldn't be it. Kidnapping didn't occur often in town, much like the tails on people. Why do I keep coming back to the tail subject? It bugged me out every mention of it. So in an effort to change the subject, I asked him something, "Where am I?"

Before he could answer the question, the door suddenly sprang open with a loud boom. A large, round looking man with round glasses who wore clothing that had similarities to Zidane's own, specifically the theme, still Renaissance, he came in without any indication of being allowed in the room. He was flanked by two identical looking people who wore gas masks which looked very creepy when they didn't look like those guys who did special ops in the military, like the second Modern Warfare. But really, this man had the nerve to intrude the room without telling us that he was going to enter, by kicking down the door like a certain federal agent. It would have been cool to see some military soldiers breaking down the doors and I had to beat them up-wait, wait, wait! Scratch that! That would be possible since the military was like a well oiled machine and I was just a teenager who was only in high school. What a match would that be!

"So, he's awake. Good!" the large man said with seriousness in his tone. He turned to me and waved, like he had known me for years.

"Now we can question him how'd he gotten himself on the ship without us knowing," said the one masked man on the left side.

"Interrogation?" asked the one from the right.

"Maybe. And if he doesn't answer, how about torture?"

That made me cringed in horror. Torture? No, no, no, no, **NO****!** This was not happening. You wouldn't torture a high schooler! That was, like a serious offense to the law, and very unethical to add! Now I was shaking in my boots, if I wore boots. I was too scared to care about my appearance. There were only the scenes of myself being tortured like those people in the games, hoping to survive by only inflicting pain to my own body.

Zidane saw the horror in me and said, "No, no question. No interrogation. And definitely there's especially no torture. We don't do that here. Not our line of work. They're only kidding" He turned to the three and gave them a glare, especially the two flanking the one in the middle. "Benero! Zenero! Do both of you have your masks on too tight? Stop scaring the kid."

The man with the glasses slapped the two behind their heads, "That was not the thing I was thinking, ya idiots." The two groaned in pain as they held their heads. They mumbled an apology to him and to me.

"So, you have a name?" asked the big guy.

"Joshua. Joshua Valenti." I introduced myself.

"Hmm, interesting..." My name? Interesting? Hardly. It was like a common name in the town. There were at least five Joshuas in the town and two more in my family. And Joshua was also common in the world. If I knew a celebrity who has a name Joshua, I'd give an example but I was not very knowledgeable in that department too.

"So, how'd you get on the ship?" Zidane asked.

Ship? What ship? I was confused. "What do you mean by ship?"

He raised a brow at me, like he was questioning my sanity or something between the lines. "Uh, the ship as in the ship you are in, in this very moment"

Uh, okay...this was getting more confusing. They were telling me that I was in a ship. There were no ships in town. I've known that the ships that resided in town sailed out in time for the scheduled departures for various plans. All that I remembered was I was in Eliot's house with him and Kit playing a game. The game was Final Fantasy...IX

Oh how could I have not seen it? I was inside a game! But how could that have happened?

"Well, are you gonna stare at the wall all day or answer the question?" The man, now I knew as Baku, the boss of this group, asked.

"I don't know," I trailed off. Zidane and the man looked like they didn't believe me. That was understandable since I was intruding their "ship" from what they told me. Who would trust a guy like that? "To be completely honest, I really don't remember how I got on this ship of yours. I'm sorry for the inconvience."

"Hmm..."

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

The man motioned to Zidane. The thief approached him. Baku pulled him in and turned their backs at me. I blinked at their actions. It must have been an important topic. I hope it didn't include me.

"Do you believe him?" he asked the tailed thief.

"I do. But there is something fishy here."

"Excuse me, I can hear you two, you know." I said, trying to get their attention. I even flailed my arms like a cat with curtains around the arms, trying to fly with the makeshift wings from the cartoons.

"Yeah, there is," the man continued, ignoring my statement. Alas, I was ignored. I sighed as I stood up from the bed I was laying on. The two was still talking, and still their backs in front of myself. Maybe they were thinking that I was some freak that came out of the loony bin days before they found me on their ship. That would give them the idea that I was crazy. The stares from the identically masked men were not even helping my status in this place. Maybe I should say something. It was not I was hiding something from them. I really didn't know how I got here. And that was something I wanted to find out for myself.

"Joshua," called the man.

"Y-yes sir?" I stuttered.

"Will you come with us?" I blinked, surprised. I sensed something that I didn't want to.

"Uh...for what?" I asked him.

"Just a little something, something." He quickly replied. The man motioned at me to follow him as he, Benero, Zenero and Zidane left the room. "Also, you might want to fix yourself. You look awful!" Baku yelled from the hall, ending with a loud laugh. I didn't know what he was laughing at, my clothes or the fact that he said I looked awful. But when I checked myself at the mirror, I didn't look awful...mostly. The clothes I was wearing was not the same school uniform I was wearing after I went to school. I had to admit, I looked cool in these clothes, not that I looked worse in my usual clothing. The only thing wrong in this picture was my hair was a little messy and the clothes looked wrinkled. I took Baku's advice and took my time to fix myself. I fixed my messy black hair and straightened my clothes before following them down the hall.

Zidane was waiting at the hall, likely waiting for me. He was busily twirling his dagger around his fingers, which would do to anyone who was bored, and he was bored waiting for me. I might as well hurry up and speak to him.

"Hey!" I called to him.

He turned and saw me approaching him. "Took your time, did you?"

"He did say to fix yourself, which I did so myself."

"At least you look a little better now."

I chuckled. "Well, what do we do now?"

He kept his dagger and thought for a moment. "The boss said I should give you the tour of the place before we start the meeting. And he said you should come too."

I blinked at him. "The meeting? For what?"

Zidane just started to walk down the hall. "Don't worry about that. Let's just get the tour done, shall we?"

Taking his word for it, I followed him down the hall, wondering if this place I was in the world of a game that I was going to play with two of my friends. And how about them, are they alright?

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

Zidane and I stopped by a door before turning back to me. "I guess that ends the tour of the Prima Vista," he said cheerfully.

I hummed to him, saying nothing. Then I remembered what he had said earlier. "So, does that mean you'll tell me what the meeting is about?"

He waved his hand, trying to dismiss the subject. "You'll know soon. We're standing right outside the meeting room."

Zidane turned the knob of the door and he went in. I followed him in, bumping right into him.

The room was dark. It didn't even have a slight dim of light in it. Where was the glow in the dark wrist band that I had earlier this morning? At least that could help me see in this dark room. Anyway, Zidane started to walk around in the darkness, maybe trying to find something to light in this darkness.

"Ah, here we go." With a slight scratching sound, Zidane had lit the whole room using a match that he must have found in the room. The fire burning that lit the room was better than staring in the darkness. I thought I was blind a moment earlier. The dark tend to have that kind of effect on people.

"This is the meeting room?" I asked, looking around. That's strange. "Nobody's here Zidane."

He pointed to the room to the right. "Actually that's the room." You should have been a little clearer when you told me the place. The thief approached the door and knocked thrice, twice, and then a last one. I heard footsteps coming from the other side, no, many footsteps behind it. There must be at least two people in there. The footsteps suddenly stopped. The door creaked from the other side.

"Who's there!" yelled a voice behind the door.

I looked at Zidane, wary of what was behind it. He just shrugged and replied. "It's me, Zidane!"

With that, the door opened and three people walked out of the room. I was wrong, but close. The four men, including Zidane, did some salute thing before they greeted each other.

"Hey, Zidane! You sure are late!" said the red haired man.

He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Sorry. I had to give the tour to him as the boss said," he said, pointing to me. It's not my fault you are late. You could have just done the tour without flirting too much with the lady, Ruby was it? But nooooo, hormones comes first before duty.

The man with a big belly, pardon me, and a scary beard, pardon me again, looked at me and was surprised all of the sudden. "Hey! You're that kid who flew right on this ship," he said. "How'd you do that?"

The kid who flew? Did I fly earlier or something? Oh yeah, Baku said I somehow got on this very ship. He must have seen me do it. I should ask him to describe how that happened. "Did you by any chance see how I got here? I must have fainted when I did."

"You bet I did!" he exclaimed. "You nearly squished me! How could I forget?" Oh-kay, that didn't sound good from that sentence and his tone of voice. But I needed to hear this. It might help."I was just minding my own business. You know, walking around the deck, trying to find out that squeaking sound on the boards. That's when I started hearing this whooshing noise. I couldn't find it. Left, right, forward! That is until I looked up. You were falling from the sky and you almost hit me! I jumped to the side in time to avoid being a round spot on the deck. That's when I found you."

Now that didn't help at all. I guess that's why you don't get your hopes high. But at least that solved this urge to crack the bones in my spine. "Nothing else?"

"Nope."

The bandana wearing man then joined in the conversation. "I'm Marcus," he introduced himself, "He's Blank and Cinna." He said while pointing at the red haired man and the hammer holder. "So where did you come from… uh, name?"

"Joshua," I said. Should I tell them where I'm from? No, I shouldn't. It's too private. Then I remembered a line that would fit this situation from a recent anime I had watched this week. "It's hard to say where I'm from when you're always on the move."

"Oh…" the three said at the same time. Wow, that line really did the job. That was really unsuspected, as I had thought they would continue to ask if I said that. I would just go with it.

"So, where's Baku?" I asked, changing the topic.

"He's around, probably," said Zidane.

The one who was almost crushed by yours truly raised an eyebrow at me. "You met the boss?" I nodded. I was about to say that he was actually a nice guy when a loud crash came before us. I whipped my head, with Zidane following my example. To my horror, a large beast stomped in the room. It whipped its long neck at us and let out a battle screech.

"What is that!" I exclaimed, backing away slowly from the creature.

The four men stood their ground, as if they have already seen this before. They looked like those people who always saw danger before them. I shifted myself into fighting stance. Standing in front of the creature firmly, waiting for it to make a move. Our eyes were steadily focused on our opposition. Mine moved slowly to the side, staring at the others. Zidane's fingers were twitching to take his daggers out. I was tense in waiting for anyone to move and I didn't want to make it. Instinct was telling me to bolt out of the room. But that would be cowardly and I didn't learn to defend myself for nothing. If the worse comes, it would be my plan B. I hope my skills are not too rusty. This must be a test for me, if I can still go.

The creature once again let out a screech. Before I knew it, they whipped out their weapons. Another surprise let itself known when the creature brought out a sword. Yes, some weird creature had just gotten itself a weapon to fight. Not a good sign. And after that, I found myself in the middle of a fight.

The creature charged with its sword held high. It took a swing at Zidane. He jumped back and moved for a counterattack. He took one of his daggers and swiped at the creature but it was blocked by its sword. Cinna ran to the creature, intending to nail the creature, excuse the pun. He jumped, with his hammer ready to strike. But the creature sidestepped him and kicked him away while he was still holding off Zidane's strikes.

"Hey kid, what'cha standin' around for?" Blank called at me, who looked like an idiot watching paint dry, "Can you fight?"

"Y-yeah," I stuttered as Marcus and Zidane started swiping at it.

"Any weapons?"

"No need. I can fight with just my hands and feet."

"Well get a move on! We won't be able to handle this by ourselves."

"Right!" I yelled out with full courage as I cautiously approached the creature while it was still fending off Zidane, Cinna, and Marcus' attacks. Blank soon joined in the sword/dagger/hammer brawl. Okay, I need a plan. I need to find its weak spot and think about how I use it to my advantage. Good plan.

But there was something wrong with. Oh, how about the part being shredded by its sword. And if not by him, by everybody else's weapon. Stabbed by a dagger or slashed by a sword. How about a third option? Being pounded by a hammer? Oooh, sounds fun.

Eliot's cynicism must be rubbing off on me.

Nonetheless, I did what I needed to do, attack the creature without any weapon. I bravely jumped over Zidane's head, with him staring at me in surprise as he was locked daggers and sword with the creature, and gave the creature a strong kick on the side of its head. It staggered to the side, dazed by the kick.

"Nice!" exclaimed Zidane. I could only grin before it was on the move again. I jumped to my right to avoid a vertical slash. It was followed up by a swipe that was aimed for my chest. I ducked the sword, almost cutting some of my hair if I ducked a second too late. The dodge was followed up by a pair of straight punches landed on the creatures gut before it flailed its sword at me, making me back away. It stretched its gloved hands at me. I twisted around him and gave him a kick to its neck and a punch again to its gut. It staggered more; it shook the attack and stalked me. You've got to be kidding.

Marcus swung his sword at him, just in time for the creature to block it. Cinna sneaked behind him, aiming to take a swing at its legs. As he was about to hit it, Blank came flying in and collided with him, sending the two across the room. "Give me a break..." groaned Cinna as he fell back to the floor.

Zidane and I ran to the creature. It gave us a vertical slash. The monkey tailed thief jumped over the attack as I slid under it. He was able to score a direct hit with his daggers on the creature. It groaned in pain, but still went on the attack. Ducking under another slash, I landed a combination of punches and kicks at it, but it was not enough to bring it down, not even to its knees.

"What do we have to do to knock this thing down to its ugly face?" Marcus asked the both of us.

I shrugged. "It must have some sort of a limit." That kept on getting redundant as it kept taking our attacks and still stand after it. Now I know what it felt to face the immovable object.

Screeching a battle cry, it charged once again. But this time, it didn't even reach us. It tripped. Face first onto the floor. Like one of those Three Stooges shows. I couldn't help but chuckle at the display of clumsiness of the dragon thing. Wait a minute, monsters didn't trip, or wasn't even clumsy.

Before I could complete my thoughts, I was knocked onto the floor. The creature must have recovered and was able to knock me down in a moment of distraction. The creature once again charged with its sword rose with the intention of cutting me in half. I could only crawl away from it. Zidane stood in front of me, holding his daggers firmly.

"Don't worry," he said. I gulped. That was not encouraging. Cinna and Marcus charged once again, but were quickly knocked down by it. This was getting worse.

The creature was close enough to cut down Zidane. He expected for the sword to come down on him. I closed my eyes tightly to prepare for the pain, but it didn't come. Instead, there was a loud "Oof!" and the creature crashed right in front of them. I blinked many times, trying to figure out how that happened. Zidane looked at me; I shrugged, not knowing what really happened. That was the second time that thing tripped. I wasn't going to let this creature get the upper hand again. I quickly stood up and stole one of the tailed thief's daggers, earning a "Hey!" from him. I rushed the creature, which recoiled when it saw me coming for him with the dagger in hand. Leaving no chance for it to run, I sliced its head with the dagger, landing past the creature. The head the cleanly cut off. The fight was over. I fell to my knees due to exhaustion, panting so hard trying to get all the oxygen I can. Thank god that was over with! I didn't know how long I was going to last. My fighting skills were rusty, very rusty that uncle would make me run around the block as punishment. Good thing he wasn't here, or else I might be punished to run around the Prima Vista, I didn't want to think about that. Now, I should wipe off the blood and give this back to Zidane.

When I looked at the dagger, the weapon wasn't tainted by blood, it was still the same. I turned my head back at the creature, and saw the dragon head on the floor, the thing is, the body was still standing. My eyes widened as the body approached everybody else. I stood up and was about to charge, when it started to laugh. Its low laugh erupted into a full blown floor shaking laughter. I was confused. It was until it turned to me.

"I didn't expect you to fight so well Joshua!"

Baku grinned at me, my jaw dropped at the sight of him. I was surprised to see him. He was the thing that he had fought just now? But that was- I mean really! That was very realistic! How could he have done that? Come on- even the roar was real.

"H-how did you..?" I asked him, clearly too surprised and too tired to say a coherent idea.

Baku continued to laugh. "Oh, I've been doing that for a while. They know how it goes."

So that was why I felt that they've seen that before. They've been fighting him in that thing for a while.

Baku looked at everyone. They could barely stand from that battle. Cinna was lying on the ground, too exhausted to move. Zidane and Blank was using the table and the door to stand while Marcus barely standing in his own power.

The leader grinned at his men. "Everyone's lookin' a lot better!" he exclaimed. Either that was they improved in fighting or he was just joking, I didn't know from the tone of his laughing voice.

"Gwahahaha!" he boomed, walking to the door behind Marcus. "Alright! Let's start this meeting already!" He opened the door, by using his boot and leaving us behind the door. I sighed and straightened myself. At least the meeting was about to start. Maybe I could get some rest while it goes on.

"Hey Joshua, are you coming or what?"

Zidane was standing by the door as the others had rested enough to stand. That was quick. I thought that it would take longer for them to rest since they were so exhausted from the fight. Then again, I'm not the only trained fighter in this room. I nodded and followed them inside the room.

Inside, the room was a mess. It was an unkempt room that had seen better days before. But that was not important as there was something more important to happen. Baku stood behind a table that had a model boat with propellers on it and a mermaid in front of the boat. The boat was in great detail, everything was perfect. I've seen model boats before from my dad but this takes the cake. This place also takes the cake of the messiest room. It was messier than Kit's room when the holidays arrived as she played a Kingdom Hearts Marathon all throughout with no sleep.

Everybody sat down as Baku settled in front of them. "Here's the plan!" he started. In his hand he raised a doll that wore a pretty dress and a crown on its head. "Our mission: to kidnap the heir to the throne, Princess Garnet."

Whoa, whoa, whoa! "Kidnap? A princess?" I asked in disbelief. The others looked at me surprised and looked at Zidane.

"Sorry, I got carried away," he said.

Baku gave Zidane a look before explaining. "You see Joshua. We were asked by our "majestic acquaintance" to "relieve" the kingdom of the princess for important reasons that we cannot release."

I blinked. "You're kidnapping the princess for some king?"

"Ah, so you get where I'm going with this one?"

"What you're doing is not good, kidnapping a princess and using her as a political tool!" I said. These guys were not going to do that while I'm around. I won't let them.

"No! We're not doing that!" Baku said. They're not?

"You're not?" I asked. "Then what are you doing with the princess?"

Baku sighed. "Look, kid. I can't tell you-"

"Because the king told you not to tell anyone not related to this?" I guessed. I felt that was what he was going to say. People in the movies sometimes do this and get it right.

"Took the words out of my mouth." I guess I was right.

Maybe they weren't bad if they did go through with it. Then again, I couldn't be sure if they do have good intentions with the princess. "Fine, I'll help. But if you do something rash, I'll have to stop you."

"Don't worry Joshua, we won't do anything." Zidane reassured me. "In return, we'll help you." Baku nodded and continued.

The plan was to kidnap, yes I said it, kidnap the princess. How? Tantalus, the group's name, will be performing a play called "I Want to Be Your Canary", a popular play from Cinna's words. Marcus will be playing lead in the play while Blank and Zidane get the princess. Blank will distract the guards in the castle as Zidane will be given the signal to snatch the princess. Wonder what I'll be doing?

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

This didn't look like a part of the plan. Noting that, I did just arrive via falling out of nowhere and onto the airship. But this was ridiculous! I couldn't do this. It was not right. They just gave me this part to play and expect me to swallow my values and pride and do what they want. No. But then they told me they'll help me if I HELP them. Not that I didn't want to be helped. I am somewhere far away from home, surely kidnapped by mysterious men who were hired by an enemy of mine. What am I thinking? Eliot's line of thought is really getting to me. I don't know why I'm going with it, but nonetheless, they'll be able to help me find my friends.

But I do wonder. Why was I left here on the rooftops?

***-End Chapter-* **

**Chapter is done and now I get to rest. I need it if I'm going to continue this in one day.**

**Remember everybody; reviews give me inspiration to write. Also criticism gives me the idea what to change. So let those reviews flow in.**

**Wyxlan Lonestar out!**


	6. Chapter 6:  That Escaping Feeling

**Title: The Excitement Begins**

**Wyxlan here, back with another chapter for you folks. As I said before, I'll be indicating a small thing before a chapter. It should be an easy thing to spot. Now onto the disclaimer!**

**Disclaimer: Never have I owned the games that care called Final Fantasy, from 1 to 13. I do own the OCs though.**

**Chapter 6 – That Escaping Feeling**

***-Joshua Valenti-Start Chapter-***

And I was wondering, why was I left on the rooftops?

Not that I was complaining since I did want to help. The rooftops were an ideal place to start reconnaissance around the city. Did they just want me out of the way? They could have just told me so, except for the fact they were kidnapping a princess of this land.

It was one of those things that got something inside me tick. Something in my heart told me not to let them. My family taught me that what was wrong will always be wrong. Uncle told me that morality is present for our own good, to have our own code to go by.

Anyway, I was walking around the rooftops, careful to not miss a step or it was hello earth face first for me. Nothing was up here except for the birds and their droppings. No one could really be up here. Baku told me that there were, but now I'm starting to believe he had some mistakes in their Intel, and again, the purpose to get me out of the operation.

Walking down, or along, the rooftops, I noticed that everyone was preparing for the play that Tantalus has planned. The people were gleeful and excited for the play. To be expected since it was a popular play in this kingdom. I continued observing the people below. There were children playing around the streets, women gossiping and chatting in front of the shops, and knights patrolling like there was a hidden gem inside one of the shops. Like I'll be stealing them from under their noses, no not really, not gonna happen.

One thing really caught my eye though. What I saw beyond the crowds of people was a small kid walking down a path, taking in the city. Not far behind him was an oddly familiar teenager walking in the same path, unconsciously as he looked like he had a lot in his mind. Until there was a woman, who looked like a hippo from the rooftop I was on, shouted at him. He had some words for the woman. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hear those words. The woman was shocked, and then turned angry in a split second as he was leaving. I wouldn't like to be that guy when he crosses paths again with that woman.

"Hey you!" I froze when I heard someone loudly call behind me. Should I look who it is? It might be just some guy actually yelling from the streets and his voice echoed here. Maybe I'll just pretend I didn't hear it and just slowly walk away. Yeah, sounds good. As I did so, I froze again when I was called again. "I'm talking to you, kid!"

I turned, slowly. I sighed gratefully. It wasn't a knight who called me. It was just an ordinary citizen in this place. "Yes?"

"What are you doing here?" he asked, curious why a kid like me was hanging around in this place, no pun intended.

"I was just-taking in the view!" I told him, turning around to do what I just said. Taking a deep breath and letting it out. I said. "The air here is great!"

The man laughed at my words. Figures. It sounded like I was crazy for saying that. He probably thinks I'm crazy now.

"Travellers always say that when they arrive here in Alexandria," he said.

"Why is that so?" I asked curiously.

"They think they could escape something by going here." He answered. "Not like it's gonna end here. They should have just gone to Lindblum. It's much more peaceful there, except for the Festival of the Hunt."

Lindblum sounded like it was a swell place to be right now. Probably it didn't have any kidnappers pretending to be a theatre troupe. Or some king that orders said "theatre troupe" to kidnap a princess of another kingdom. I hope I get to go there soon. Better yet, I should ask how to go there. I might go there after this.

But I had remembered something more important.

"I have a question-" I was about to ask when I felt a hand grab my shoulder and turn me roughly. Facing me was someone completely not was I expecting. "Uh oh."

I said that because a young man wearing armor with a sword attached behind him was harshly holding my shoulder. And that meant that he was one of those knights that Baku told me. Why didn't I see him get close? I should have seen him. And speaking of the other man I was talking about, he just disappeared. He must have seen him and just snuck away while the knight was heading towards me. What a low life.

"The play's not gonna start until an hour later. So tell me, young man, what are you doing wandering these roofs?" he demanded, his loud voice boomed like I was talking to someone using a megaphone right in my face. Not I good experience if you ask me.

"I'm just taking in the view," I answered, hoping he would take this answer and just leave me alone like the other guy.

"Ha!" he laughed, "Do you expect me to believe that garbage?"

"No sir! I am speaking the truth!"

"Tell me, are you a traveller?" he asked, slowly reaching for his sword. "Or are you a thief?"

That was a bad sign. Feeling the hostility, my foot stepped back. His foot followed. I should try to straighten this out and explain the situation. "I should tell you, good sir, that I am no thief."

"From those clothes, I wouldn't expect a thief to lie right to my face," the knight said, now gripping the hilt of his weapon. I gulped. I knew it was a bad idea to borrow Tantalus' clothes. The clothes I wore at the moment made me very conspicuous. He must think that I am one just from seeing my clothes. Hasn't anyone told him to not judge a book by its cover?

I took another step back. I tried to get this situation clear again. "Lying is not my specialty, oh good sir."

"No use sweet talking now, thief," he declared. He took out the sword and pointed the sword towards me.

"I told you, I'm not a thief!" I told him. I tried to take another step back, but no roof was left for me to step onto. Trapped, I gulped as the knight slowly approached with his sword sharply pointed to my neck. "Um, parley?"

He took a swing right for my head. I ducked and ran past him, feeling the sword barely graze me neck as I moved. "Come back here!" he yelled.

I yelled back. "This is not what I intended!" Definitely not, but this was what Baku had planned. If I could get as many guards to follow me, maybe they can sneak in Zidane and Blank as they scout the castle. This sounded like a Grand Theft Auto mission to me. Fail and I start over. Except there aren't any restarts here. Using that as my motivation, I ran for the hills...er for the other roofs.

But that really didn't work out after running to the end of my roof. No mini bridge to use to cross to the other side. The knight was making use of his time by slowly walking up to me, wiping his sword with his hand. What to do, what to do? I was trapped on this roof with nowhere to go. Then I looked at the roof meters away. An idea came to me, not a good one but still worth a try.

I backed away from the edge. I was gonna be labelled as some crazy guy after this. I ran straight for the edge and jumped. Behind me, I heard him gasp, surprised to see me jump. My feet landed and stumbled on the rooftop next to the one I was on earlier. Looking back at the other roof, the knight was fuming. "You won't get away!"

Sorry, but I need to get away if I still want to live. I'll be walking away from you now.

I started to walk, until I had bumped into something. I fell onto the roof tiles, holding my nose. Ouch, that hurt. Did I just hit a chimney? Because that felt like a brick surface when I made contact.

I looked up and saw another thing that I didn't expect.

"That's going to hurt."

Before me, another knight stood with a fist outstretched. That must have been the thing that hit me. And it was surprising too. The knight was a woman! Never thought they would allow such a thing here. And to add to my surprise, she was wearing a skimpy looking bathing suit, thigh long socks and some armor as her outfit. Women nowadays, I sighed mentally.

The knight's face winced. But her eyes were completely covered by her helmet, preventing me to see them, only her long blonde hair and lip being bit in slight pain were present. "Shi-owie," she muttered, flexing her fist as if her hand was broken.

"Are you alright?" I asked, concerned.

She nodded. Good, at least she was okay. "Thanks for your concern."

"No problem, miss." I smiled at her. She might be a knight, but at least she was nicer than that other guy. Speaking of which...

"If you'll excuse me, I have to go." I was about to run when she grabbed my shoulder. Her grip wasn't as harsh as the last one. Hers was gentler and reassuring, giving out the feeling of safety instead of the aggressive grip from earlier.

"What did you-"

"Way to go, rookie!"Her words were quickly interrupted by a yell from behind. I turned to see that the other knight was making his way here, using a board as a makeshift bridge. "Now hold him so we can put him under arrest."

Hearing those words gave me the reason I was still running. Without waiting any longer, I shook off her hand and started running again. The other knight ran and tried to grab me. But I proved to be too fast to get caught in his grip.

"Wait!" The young woman yelled out.

I ran away from the two knights, scared from being arrested, running to the boards that connected the roofs. Running away was going to be easier now and I didn't need to pull any roof jumping tricks again.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

I was getting farther and farther away from the knight and far into the center of Alexandria. Hot afternoon winds were slowly cooling as the night approached. The sun was starting to set as I ran onto the tiles carefully but with haste. Now was not the best time to see the sights. The male knight looked like he wasn't used to giving chase to a young man like me. He started to slow and let out a queasy breath like a broken squeaky toy. I looked back. The man finally stopped. But the other one was gaining on my trail. I inserted more effort and ran faster. But she was still behind me, almost close to get me.

"Please stop!" she managed to say, loud and clear in the wind. "Why are you running?"

I looked back slightly and replied a simple answer. "Cause I don't want to get caught!"

When I faced forward, another unexpected thing was before me. Actually not one thing, but many things were placed on the roof, looking like hurdles in a race. Suddenly, I felt my speed go slower.

Why does this happen to me?

Without any thoughts of safety, I sped up and jumped. A gasp made itself heard behind me but I didn't pay any attention to it. My sole attention was on the well being of myself and my escape.

Time must have slowed down when I had jumped. Every movement was slow. My body felt weightless in this moment, slowly going over the obstacles that was placed before me even before I came running here. I could stay in the air and hover like I was on the moon. Now I know how it would feel like doing a Michael Jordan dunk. Flying into the air like it was only him and the ring, with the ball in his hand.

I didn't get to finish my thought when I felt the roof tiles beneath my feet. To my amazement, I had made the jump. There was a surprise after I had made that clear.

My jump didn't land me properly. I ended up rolling into some junk that had been left on the roof tops.

It wasn't my place to complain why people put their junk on their roof, or why there was any junk at all in the first place. Nope, not at all.

I pushed a trash bin off of my chest. A pained groan came out of my lips. This was just not my day.

A shadow loomed over my junk covered self. I looked up and smiled sheepishly. "I guess you caught me."

The young woman stood before me. Her eyes still hid under that helmet, still unseen. But the position of her lips was telling me she was not happy. I do hope she was something other than angry for making her chase me. Anger and rooftops didn't make a good combination. And the sword on her back wasn't even being given a chance to join the conversation, I hope not.

She leaned in. I flinched.

"What were you thinking?" she whispered, taking a piece of trash off my hair.

"I told you, I didn't want to get caught," I repeated my last sentence to her. "But it was going to happen anyway."

"We were not going to arrest you, you know."

"Well, how about that other guy?"

"He was being too rash. I just want to know why you were up here. That's all." She said, helping get the junk off the rest of my body.

Wasn't this a surprising moment? No one saw that coming. It was just a misunderstanding, on her part, and rash judgement, on the other one's part. Now there won't be any throwing into the dungeon and left to rot business. I was free as a bird.

The knight offered her hand in front of me. I took her hand and was pulled up. "So, what was the reason?" she asked, this time more nicely than before.

I should ask her if she had seen them. Just the slightest clue if they were here, I would be less troubled. "I was just looking for someone."

Her face changed into something that looked concerned. "Who?"

"It's my friends. I've seem to have lost them," I replied.

She put a gloved finger to her lips. "There were many travellers and tourists that have arrived here just today for the play."

I was about to put on my disappointed face when she continued. "But I did get a good look of the people here. Do you know any distinguishing details you could spare to tell?"

Jackpot!

"One was a girl, about sixteen years old. She has red hair and an abusive and aggressive personality. The other is a boy, also sixteen. He has a very negative personality and always wears a hat." I told her the details in a very detailed manner. She was even surprised how I described them.

"That was...ahem...right to the point."

"Sorry, too much?"

"No, not at all," she said. "I did hear something about a boy your age get into an argument with a house wife earlier. Other knights said that they saw the boy wearing a weird looking hat and he fits the description you just said."

He was here? A boy arguing with a housewife? Then it had hit me. IT WAS HIM! I just passed him earlier. I even saw and observed him before that bum talked to me. I was so dumb to not recognize him.

"However," she went on, "I didn't see any girl of that description enter Alexandria. I'm sorry."

That was okay. At least i know he was here. I just need to find him and we can try finding her here.

"It's fine, really. I'm just glad he's safe."

I heard some metal clanging together far away. Then I remembered something. The other one was slowly coming. Arrest appeared in my head. Oh no.

"I should get out of here," I said hastily, shaking off the rest of the junk on my person. "!

"Wait! You-" I wasn't able to hear her finish as I disappeared from her sight.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

My feet took me as far as I could go. I didn't know how far did I go, but I was sure I was far enough from those knights. I leaned on the wall then slid into a sitting position, trying to get my breath back. After a few hard breaths, I peered from behind the wall. There was no trace of someone following me here. Good thing though, I wouldn't be able to run any more. With that last stunt I pulled, rest was going to be needed. A short breather would do. A friend of mine was out there. They could be in danger in this place. Who knows what could happen? But I wish nothing serious.

I took a last look behind the wall. Still, nothing was there to be suspicious of. I stood up and pushed myself off the wall. Now was the time to find him in this big town. If I was a teenager who had played this game, where would I be?

The idea hit me like a piece of junk after my Jordan jump. Where else would he go where something interesting would happen? To the play!

One way into the play was using the front gates of the castle. But there were knights there and with my previous run-in with some of them, I would say this option was out of the question. I need another way into the castle. As I tried to think of a way in, I walked into the square of Alexandria. Many people were gathering here, probably because of the play. Nobles were mostly in the crowd, only a few townsfolk rounded the crowd along with the children. Knights were scattered in the square, making me hesitate to move further. I looked to my side to see a store. Quickly, I slipped right in before a knight came close.

I let out a sigh as the knight passed. With that out of the way, I should find a way that could get me in the castle, without being sighted by the knights this time.

If I recall, there was a hole in the castle walls near some rooftops. But I didn't want to risk seeing those two who chased me again, even though the other one was very nice to me.

A greeting cut my thoughts and brought my mind back to the store. "Hello, young man! How can we help you?"

An idea came to me. Ideas were common to me today. I wonder why.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

"Come back anytime!" the man behind the counter told me. I waved goodbye and left the shop.

The cloak that the store had given me gave me a different look and the turtle neck that came with the offer hugged my body and hid my face from the eyes of the people under its hood. It was nice of them to do me a favour. They only asked for one measly thing and then decided to help me. With this, I could now walk without the fear of being spotted again.

The people from the square looked like it increased in numbers. Last I saw, they were just gathering in preparation. Now they looked like the whole kingdom and many of its tourists were gathered in this very place.

It was hard to get through the crowd, as some were pushing and bumping into each other. I struggled to pass them, but of course with some accidents. I was pushed into an empty alley. Not a single one was in the alley. Only the wind was echoing in the alley. This was the right path to where I needed to go.

I followed the alleyway right into a bell tower. It wasn't like those towers I had seen in churches and other known places. The tower before me was small compared to them. Its design was simple, but looked beautiful still. And with the sun's radiant, but slowly fading, rays, it was more beautiful than it already was.

The bell rang, interrupting its silent beauty. I looked up, seeing a little boy pulling its rope. From below the tower, I was sure that little boy up there looked very different. If my eyes didn't deceive me, I'd say that boy had a tail. The tail was swinging impatiently from the top of the tower. My curiosity told me to see what was up there. Since this was the place I was looking for, it wouldn't hurt to take a look.

"Hey, you!"

I looked up and saw the boy ringing the bell was calling me. Then I was hit by surprise. That didn't look like any ordinary boy. Taking a few steps closer, the person up the tower looked clearer. It wasn't a boy alright. Not to be rude, but that small person looked like a rat to me. I know, I know. It was not right for me to think that looks were all that matters. Seriously though, he looked like a rat, no joke.

"HEY!"

I acknowledged his presence with a wave of my hand to him. "I apologize. I was thinking of something."

He waved his fist from up the tower. "Yeah, you better! I was getting tired of yelling at you for a while just to get your attention." He must have quite the lungs to keep yelling like that.

He pointed at me. "Get up here! I'm bored!" And this guy was bossy. What a combination.

I did what I was told and climbed up the ladder. When I reach the top, it surprised me that the guy was only a kid, no offense intended. He was smaller than I thought. That loud voice of his must give him a better visual image.

"Are you alone here?" I asked.

He nodded. "I was with these two guys who agreed to be my slaves. But when I got here, they didn't even follow me here."

"You know why they haven't come back yet? "

"Not really. I just told them to follow me. They must have been caught by that repair guy. Now I've lost my two slaves." He said, lowering his head to glace at the ground, sad.

"That makes the both of us."

He looked at me, surprised. "You lost two slaves too?"

"Not exactly," I chuckled. "They're not really my slaves, they're friends actually."

The young kid got curious. "How'd they get lost?"

"Well you see," I began. "We were just...hanging out in my friends home. They'd got into an argument and something happened. It was something not you would see everyday. Something extraordinary."

"Monster got in and took your friends?" he interrupted. I chuckled once again. What an imagination he has.

"No, I'm not sure what it was. But it was definitely not a monster." I sighed. The sun was almost down and night was soon coming. I haven't found them yet. That knight told me that she saw a boy wearing a weird hat. That could be him. But then I thought she might be talking about a certain noble that could wear a hat weird enough to be take note of. How stupid of me to not think of that earlier when I was talking to her. Maybe I shouldn't have left her there. She could have helped me look. My hand glided through my raven locks, my hair was wet with sweat and cold from the air this evening brought. The wind was still blowing at this time, such cold but comforting breeze at this time was great. Time was not one with me today. It was against me in my search for my friends.

"Are you here for the play?" the little kid asked.

"You could say that." It was the truth, partially at least. I was in the plan to kidnap the princess, which I was repeatedly against since I landed on the ship. Not that I had any choice. Who knew what they would do if I didn't help.

"You too eh? So you know the way here?"

"What way?"

"You don't know? I thought you know since you're here."

"Oh me, I'm just passing by, still looking for my friends." I said. I took another look at the sky. It never got tiring to look at the sky. It was just so comforting. But relaxing wasn't in my schedule at this time. I stood up and dusted off my cloak. "If you'd excuse me, I have to go and continue searching. Who knows where they are. I hope they're safe." The last part came out muttered, not wanting him to hear my weariness. I bowed him goodbye and proceeded along the rooftops. Even though I had a run in with Alexandrian knights on the roof, I wasn't going to let that stop me. Friends before fears, I'd always say.

"Wait!" I turned towards the young one. "I thought you didn't know that path?"

"Oh I'm just exploring. That's all," I told him as I smiled. "See you next time..."

"The name's Puck."

"I hope we cross paths again Puck." I parted ways with the young little rat-like kid, again with no offense right to him.

My walk across the rooftops was a short one. Cautiously, I made my way to the end of the path. The rooftop path I had taken ended at broken wall of the castle. This must be what little Puck was talking about. But there was a large gap, and I meant very large, gap between the roof and the castle. I would probably need a small bridge to make it across. But after trying to find something that could fit my need, there was only one way to go. And it was not I wanted.

Slowly, I backed away from the edge, about a few steps near a chimney of the roof. This should have been enough. Without any hesitation, I started running to the edge.

I knew that it wasn't even safe, but time was being wasted for my search. They could have been inside the castle while I was lollygagging out here. And being worried for my friends wasn't doing me any favors.

My feet moved fast enough as I ran. I thought that my speed was enough to get me through, but I was not thinking straight at this time so I didn't really think about it. When I had reached the edge, instinct kicked in and I jumped. I didn't realize it fast enough, but I had already landed on the other side. It must be the adrenaline that made me unaware.

After taking a deep breather, I decided to take a rest. I climbed the broken wall and saw some barrels and some bags behind it. That could work.

I placed myself behind the wooden barrels and used the bags as a pillow. The cloak would look like a mess later on, but rest was needed if I wanted to continue. I looked up the sky for the third time today I think, I couldn't keep count how many time I had done it today. The sky once again looked comforting. It was slowly floating away as the sun continued to set for the day to make way for the darkness of the night. My eyes started getting heavier and heavier, and sooner than I thought, I had fallen asleep.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

My nap was starting to get very comforting, but then steps broke the peace I had fallen asleep with. My eyes drowsily opened. I didn't have time to stretch and clear the sand out of my eye. I slowly rose from behind the barrels and saw three people walking towards the wall.

A little kid in red overalls carrying a ladder approached the edge. He looked very familiar. Then I remembered that it was the little kid from the tower, Puck. "Whew! We finally made it!" he exclaimed. He threw the ladder onto the gap, making a makeshift bridge between the roof and the broken wall of the castle. "After this wall, we'll be in the castle." So that was what the ladder was for. How clever of him. Where did he get that ladder anyway?

Puck crossed the makeshift bridge and motioned for the two to follow. I took a glance at the other two. The first one looked like a small boy wearing a big jacket and a tall pointy hat but was weary and bended. The other was a teenage boy who was wearing an unusual hat and had a wary face that looked very familiar.

Then I realized it, it was him. It was Eliot!

The two had moved far inside the walls, leaving Eliot behind. He didn't move an inch from his location. I was about to call him when his head snapped back to where they came from. I sank lower behind the barrels, continuing to watch from my spot atop the wall. Eliot's eyes started to wander at almost every direction, taking a glance at every location he could set his eyes on. He turned and started to do the same. His actions kept repeating until he had covered every direction he could possibly see. What was he looking for?

"Wherever you are, show yourself!" he yelled to the unseen being. He must have thought someone was following him, but for what reason? Eliot turned his head where I was. Before he could bat his eye at me, I dropped down to avoid his glance. Footsteps came from inside. Could it be the knights? No, they couldn't be. I dared a glance to see what or who approached. There I saw Puck and that other kid he accompanied approach him. I was glad it was them and not the knights.

"Eliot?" the hat wearing young one called him. He continued to look around, not minding the boy. Worried, he asked. "Is something the matter?"

Eliot finally stopped in his search and straightened himself. "Nothing just thought I had forgotten something."

"What did you forget?"

"I didn't pay for the drink earlier." He replied to him. Drink? As in water or was it something else. I was about to ponder on this a little longer until they started moving to the castle. "But that's not important, Viv. Come on, let's get to the show. "

When the three finally got inside, I left my spot behind and jumped off the wall. I was still worried, even now that I have located him. "Eliot," I said not too loudly, hoping no one heard it. At least he was okay now.

With no hesitation, I followed him into the castle. I was not going to let him out of my sights now. I'll just keep an eye out for him then I'll return to Baku before the play starts.

***Joshua Valenti-End Chapter-***

**Whew! That was longer than I had expected to make. I was starting to wonder when I would finish this one.**

**Now then, I hope this chapter would bring in the reviews. Reviews would be nice just to keep me going. I need them to improve! Oh and if there are some grammatical errors, feel free to tell me in a review.**

**Wyxlan out!**


	7. Chapter 7: No Inspection for Trouble

**Hey there! *crickets chirp* Well, that's not encouraging.**

**Sorry for not updating this story for a long while. I had a pretty much large plot bunny. What did I do to get rid of it? Write a completely different story and rethink the plot of this one. It's working little by little. So I made this chapter as filler, if it looks like it.**

**But I digress, I bring you another chapter. And if you want, you can check out my other story, Temporal Distortion.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own FF IX, I own the OCs that appear here.**

**Chapter 7 – No Inspection for Trouble**

***-Eliot Fletcher-Chapter Start-***

If I didn't know it, I was being followed by someone.

That was the feeling I carried with me ever since we got in here. It was not normal, but it wasn't weird either. I kept turning around just to see the shadows and the snickers of the nobles directed at me. Not that it bothered me or something. I was used to it after the tenth time since arriving. Vivi and Puck were concerned of my well being, well Vivi was the only one really concerned. Puck only sighed and told me to cut it out. If I wanted to cut it out, I would have already done it minutes ago. Paranoia kept coming back like a horrible rash that didn't want to leave. I was trying to see where this feeling came. But the problem was, I saw nothing, of course.

"Eliot," Vivi called me. "Are you going to be alright?"

_I'm fine! There is NOTHING wrong with me! I am sane and feeling as fine as the morning sun._ That would be my reply, but I was talking to a kid. And that reply would need some toning down. "I'm alright, no need to worry." I said coolly.

Puck snickered at my words, taking it with a grain of salt. More like a handful of salt if you asked me. "Yeah, right, like that's the truth."

"I am not crazy."

"Sure you are." He said with fake sympathy. Again, if he wasn't a prince, I would have kicked him off the rooftops. But as political issues go, I didn't want to hear 'Off with his head!' or something. I want my head to stay where it was, on my shoulders.

I was about to argue, but the loud firework started onstage, interrupting my argument with Puck. He and Vivi watched the fireworks in awe, I, on the other hand, just watched it bored as hell. I've seen better fireworks at the town's anniversary, and believe me it was better but still duller than this. This would be the time where the elephant woman, Brahne, was dancing around like the display was for her and for her only. What a selfish woman. I sighed to myself when I did think of that. The noble in front of me turned his head and looked at me with a scowl.

"Don't mind me," I told him.

"Would you be quiet, peasant? I'm trying to watch this elegant play." He threw a glare right after his warning words left his large mouth. Oooh, scary. Yeah right.

"Look that hard and you might go blind," I said nonchalantly, flicking the visor of my hat as an insult.

The noble scoffed lightly, but his glare hardened at me. "I doubt that you would have that effect."

"I wouldn't talk about that to me." My lips formed an evil grin. I showed him my hand, in a peace sign and made a motion that melted his glare into a scared look. "Unless you want your eyes to be gouged right out of your eye sockets and tightly wrapped around your neck. Better choose your words wisely."He whimpered and looked straight back onto the stage. The grin turned into an amused smile. Heh, I thought so. Eliot, uno; Nobles, número cero! The look on his face was hella funnier than the look I imagined on Steiner. Priceless! I wished I had a camera so I could remember it everyday.

A small sound came from my side. When I turned, it was Puck who was staring intently at me. "That was cold." Oh, he must have heard. _Well, it would be easier if you experience that now rather than some time in your life._

"No, I'd rather do that last one," the prince told me. Dammit, I just couldn't keep my mouth shut.

"That doesn't matter, Puck." With that, I turned my attention to the stage, where Baku, dressed in his King Leo costume, started to approach the center of the stage. He bowed at the audience, and to the watching Elephant lady and birthday princess. Er, I meant Queen Brahne and Princess Garnet by the way.

"Tonight's performance is a story that takes place long, long ago," Baku began his small introduction of the play. "Our heroine, Princess Cornelia, is torn from her lover Marcus. She attempts to flee the castle, only to be captured by her father, King Leo. When our story begins, Marcus, having heard of this, crossed swords with the king.

"And now, Your Royal Majesty, Queen Brahne, Your Highness, Princess Garnet. Noble Ladies and Lords, and our rooftop viewers, Tantalus proudly presents 'I Want to Be Your Canary'!" Baku finished with a bow and the music played, the play now finally beginning.

I looked behind my shoulder, to my sides and everywhere my eyes could see. There was that paranoia feeling again as I felt something watching me. It could be the rooftop people, but they didn't know me and I didn't think they were such a threat. Something else was bothering. Was it the play? It must be. I didn't have this feeling before I came to this place. There must be something that I was not aware of. And I needed to find out to get a little peace for my mind.

I slowly tiptoed myself away from Vivi and Puck. I didn't want them to follow me to where I was going or to worry a certain black mage. I was unsure of what Puck might do, though. So I let them watch the play in peace as I search for this source of my lingering feeling of paranoia. I had made my way back to the upper walls of the castle where the three of us entered and where this all started.

I looked around for clues of being followed into the castle. There was nothing of the slightest trace of someone being here behind us. I remembered that there would be no one that would be able to follow us since there were some boards broken when we had crossed the roof tops. It would either take extremely large guts or just an idiot who had his brain take a vacation to jump to these roofs. I started to lightly tap the visor of my hat, deep in thought.

My tapping stopped a few minutes of thinking. I looked up at the wall. "Hmm, I wonder..."

**-*FF-* -*FF*- -*FF*-**

The inside of the castle was not what I had expected. To think, I thought that the Alexandrian castle was big in the game; it was actually bigger in the flesh. Well, in the stone, tiles, carpets, curtains, you get my drift.

I wandered about in the castle after my time in the spot of the broken wall I decided to do some exploring inside the castle. Since, if I were to follow the game's events, I would see the inside of this place right after the decimation of a certain tree, spoiler alert people. Not saying which tree will be destroyed because that would be less fun. Figure it out for yourselves. Now getting in was no easy task, but not hard too. It was probably in the middle, the center, neutral, whatever. There was supposedly knights guarding the entrance to the castle, but I found a lack of knights at the entrance so I just walked right in like I owned the place. I was guessing the Knights of Pluto were in charged of that one. Knowing that they are scattered in the castle, it wouldn't be surprising to not see one of them until I get inside. It was kind of sad that I wasn't able to do any "hug the shadows", "knock out the guard and hide the body", or "distract a guard with a coin" tricks. I should have done at least one of those. But alas, none was used.

My exploration brought me in front of a large picture of I think was the elephant lady, the queen of the place. _Wow, now I wonder what this guy sees in Brahne. Just a thought about it gave me shivers_.

No thinking of disgusting ideas, bad Eliot, bad! Do not make this into an M rated story!

Anyway, after I had calmed myself down, I decided to check out the hallway to the left of the picture. To my not surprise, it was where the dining hall was. I heard the Qus in the kitchen making quite a hassle. Slowly, I approached the opening hallway to the kitchen. I didn't want them to notice while I take some free samples of the fine delicacies they have cooked up for the Princess and for that hippopotamus of a mother.

The table beside the kitchen got my eyes go wide like plates. Speaking of plates, on said table was filled to the edge with food that looked like they were made by the gods, for the gods. Their savoury smell flew right into my nose. I was in awe! These foods were beautifully arranged, making the table look like it was arranged by professional caterers in a multi-million celebrity party for the likes of Donald Trump, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton, and maybe the President of the United States! Okay, I was over thinking the president part but my god, if I would allow it, I'd drool on the floor with no regards to the disgust of anyone who would pass by. _Must...take...a bite!_

"You there! What do you think you're doing?"

I froze, in the middle of taking a turkey leg from the table.

I heard footsteps followed by clanking noises behind me, slowly approaching me. If he was who I thought it was, I was in a lot of trouble. I didn't want to turn around just in case. No, I wasn't scared. I was just tense from that booming voice that sounded from a megaphone. Any other person would be scared and tense if a voice like that exploded behind you, and I wouldn't blame them if they did.

"Do you not have any manners? Turn around and face me!" the man behind me ordered with authority.

I slowly settled the turkey leg back onto the plate while I was thinking of a probably horrible excuse that this man could accept.

Slowly, I turned to the man. Surprise had sneaked into my features when I saw who the man was. This moment had thrown me out of my excuse thinking time. Before me, or actually standing right in front of me with him glaring at me with his hand on the hilt of his sword, was Steiner, the captain of the Knights of Pluto. I quickly fixed my features just in time to avoid his eyes from studying my face just like what Doctor Lightman does with other people, but I was guessing that this guy didn't know about micro expressions, or if it ever existed.

"Well? Speak!" he boomed, knocking me out of my head and making me stagger back. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

_Okay, let's see if this would work. _"I apologize that I haven't introduced myself," I bowed elegantly at him. "My name is Sir Williams H. Pierce. Official Health Inspector for her Royal Highness' birthday party." I introduced myself in a strict, heavy English accent. One of my parents always had this friend that was from England, he would talk like this when he was in his business mode with them. I would always copy his accent without any problems. Also the fact that I was also part English helps. So this should be easy.

"Official Health Inspector? I haven't heard of such-"

I waved my hand at him, interrupting him midsentence. "It is my duty to inspect every morsel of these abominations your chefs call food if these were cooked in the slightest germ filled grill."

"Such garbage!" he said. "Alexandria has the finest cooks in the land and they will not even think of harming the Princess. Now leave the castle at once before I throw you out myself!"

I eyed the knight with annoyance. I did have to keep up this snobby health inspector picture up if I wanted him to believe I was the real deal. "What is your name, you ignorant, sad excuse for a knight?"

"I am Captain Adelbert Steiner and I will not have you talk so lowly of the Captain of the knights of Pluto, you fake!"

"Listen here 'Captain Steiner', if that is your real rank and name," I said, using air quotes while saying Rusty's name. "I will tell you this. If you do throw me out of this castle without doing my job of inspecting the food, you would have decided your princess' fate, and anyone who has bitten the smallest bite of this food for that matter. So I would suggest that you let me do my job or do you wish to gamble the Royal Family's fate just to prove that you are right of me being fake?"

I could see his face pale after giving him an ultimatum. Steiner could just leave me alone for me to "inspect" the food. The golden, scrumptious, drool worthy food. Yummy. Or throw me out figuring that I was lying all along. That would be troublesome. I would have to walk through the entrance again if that happened. But if I am right, which at the moment I do not want to be, Steiner was already gathering the other Knights of Pluto. Also I would have to miss the scene where Zidane, Garnet, and Steiner fly above the audience, taking a page out of the circus people.

"Very well," Steiner said, finally relenting. "You can inspect the food. But if you so much do something fishy to the food, you shall be punished!"

"Of course, Sir Steiner. If I do such a crime, you can have my head on a platter." I said, trying to keep myself from laughing. I swear, after saying that gave me the urge to pull out a pair of sunglasses and yelled out a loud, dragged out yeah.

"I must return back to the Queen," Steiner turned around, not before getting in my face for the last time. "I will keep an eye on you." He growled to me before leaving with the sounds of his armor clanking in his every step. So long Rusty. I will see you aboard the Prima Vista later. I returned my full attention to the turkey leg. Now where was I before I was rudely interrupted?

***-FF-* *-Joshua Valenti-* *-FF-***

Baku turned from Marcus and Blank as I entered the room. He was dressed in some sort of formal clothing that would have fit a king. Then I remembered the play. He was going to play King Leo later on. "There ya are, Joshua!" he greeted me. He was a bit surprised when I came. "Where'd ya get that? And the clothes, it looks brand new. What happened?" Baku asked, pointing to my new apparel.

"I did someone a favor," I answered, removing my new cloak. "No big, just get this and bring back. I also did what you said." Nothing special, it was just a little favor. "I had to lay low earlier. About the clothes, I had them fixed up while I was hiding. Sorry if I was too long."

He gave out a big laugh, amazed that a guy like me could have gotten the knights to chase me around Alexandria like a cat and mouse doing its natural thing. He congratulated me and patted me at the back. I winced sharply. That fall I took earlier from being chased by those knights did a number on my back. That was not fun, at all.

"Don't ya worry your little head of it, I don't mind. Ya should get some rest. The play's about to start." He told me. "Now, I have a show to start." Baku turned and exited the room. I took a seat the seat beside the door, glad that Baku wasn't expecting much out of me. He did tell me to only cause trouble for the knights. He told me that those knights were as fast as an old lady in a store. Now I know that kind of description was wrong, ideally and literally. Some of the knights were actually fast. Like those two who actually came close to capturing me. The only reason I wasn't put into a cell with the other criminals was the misunderstanding of that knight. She was not only kind, she was also helpful. She had seen one of my friends in Alexandria.

With hope renewed, I had found him. He was in the castle, about to watch the play that Tantalus was about to perform. I've kept my eye on him since spotting him. But something was bothering him. He kept turning and looking, his eyes kept on wandering around. It earned him some looks from the nobles and the townsfolk on the roof. I couldn't figure out what was bugging him. Perhaps he was thinking of our other friend, Kit, She was still missing and that knight said she didn't spot anyone with the description I gave her. Truly something like that could bother a friend. Thinking about this made me sigh unintentionally.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I looked up and saw Zidane. He wasn't dressed in some outfit like Baku was, he was still wearing his green vest, sleeveless shirt, gloves with large cuffs, those belts along with the knife holders tied on them, pants and boots. Almost nothing changed since we saw each other hours ago.

I shook my head. "Nothing, just thinking."

"Aw, come on, Josh," he started. "I know you're thinking of something. Is it about a girl?"

"A girl? What gave you that idea?"

"You did do the plan, right?" I nodded. "Surely while you were going back, you met one fine lady on the way."

I chuckled. Outrageous, only he would think of something like that. But as much as I wanted to deny the thought, I did meet a girl, just not in an ideal meeting that anyone would think.

Zidane grinned at me. "Ah! So you did meet someone! What's her name?"

"Huh? Oh... I... wasn't able... to ask..." I muttered, blushing in embarrassment. Now that I did think about it, I wasn't able to ask her name. It would happen if she happened to be a knight that could arrest you for a felony, and I was suspicious enough to be accused.

Zidane's grinned grew bigger. "Darn, you're telling the truth. You DID meet someone! I just thought you were just chased by some on Beatrix's knights."

I didn't respond anymore. If I just told him the truth, he might get the wrong idea. And wrong ideas just won't do if you just met the guy earlier.

"Zidane! Where the hell are you?" a yell was heard from outside. It was looking for the blonde thief. "Time to get this canary flying! Places everyone!"

The blonde thief straightened himself. "Well, I guess it's time to get the princess." Zidane said. "Catch you later, after we get the princess."

I nodded, knowing how the plan would work. He left the room leaving me alone to think. I knew that my part in the plan was done. There was nothing for me to do but to sit and wait for the events to unravel. Then again, I was not being observed and Baku didn't say I was not allowed to go. I could take this time to talk to Eliot and ask if he had seen Kit anywhere.

I left the Prima Vista, leaving the rest to Baku and Tantalus to get Garnet. I, on the other hand, was on a different agenda.

***-FF-* *-Eliot Fletcher-* *-FF-***

Ah! That last dish really hit the spot!

"Inspection *hiccup* is done," I said to the chef. "You may feed this to the Princess. Good work."

The Qu who was in charge of the kitchen bowed. "Thank you, Inspector. I am glad that the food was unaffected by this virus you told us. It could have killed the Princess! Thank you for doing your job."

I waved my hand, trying to finish this conversation quickly. "No need. It's my job to-"I held up my hand to my mouth to suppress the belch I was about to make. "...sacrifice my life to check if the food is clean. Good day!"

I left the kitchen and headed to somewhere I could hide for a while. Returning to Vivi and Puck wouldn't be a problem, it was just I was too full to get there unnoticed. The library would be a good place to settle.

With the plan to hide in the library in action, I was about to head down when I heard the loud roar of the crowd outside. The play really was a hit, as Steiner would think. I wonder, were Zidane and Blank already in the castle? That uproar might have been their sword fight. Darn, I wasn't able to see that part. Hah, I'll just settle for the reactions by Vivi and Puck later on.

I was about to exit to the hall when a knight blazed right through me. Surprisingly, he didn't bother to look at me and say that I was suspicious. Instead, he was solely focused on the food that I had _inspected_ earlier.

Slowly, I walked out without bothering the knight with his business with the food. To my annoyance, there was a knight running around the hall, running out of the room across the previous room I had gotten out of, down and up and raced to the room behind me. "Excuse me," he hurriedly said before dashing in. _At least he was polite unlike that other one._

Before he would notice me out of the room, I made my way to where I came from. I stopped to a halt and hid behind the wall. As fate would have, two more soldiers came out. The two looked like they were discussing something. One looked thicker, probably because of the armor or he was fat and needed a bigger armor size. His face was unrecognizable from the distance where I was hiding. The helmet covered half of his head, only showing his nose up to the chin. The other was wearing the same armor as the other Knights of Pluto, only the difference with him was no helmet. Just blonde hair and blue eyes from what I could see.

Wait a minute! A thought just struck me in the head. Those two wasn't part of the Knights of Pluto, they were from Tantalus! More importantly, those two were Zidane and Blank in disguises! I guess I was wrong about earlier. Steiner would be collecting the knights now, not earlier. Silly me, I guess the food distracted me.

They stood there, discussing. I couldn't hear them from where I was hiding. Zidane and Blank must be going over their plan to kidnap the Princess, who I knew was getting ready to run away herself. Too bad I couldn't observe that without getting noticed by both parties.

The duo ran up the stairs. Those two will be busy with her. Without distractions, I hastily made my way back to the play. They would be worrying right now, Vivi might be but not Puck. And I wouldn't want to worry the little guy.

As I made my way through the hallway, I felt a pang of paranoia return. _Not again..._

I stopped walking. This had to stop now. Not that I was scared of this shadow that seemed to follow me everywhere and make its presence known when the hell it wanted. It was getting annoying and frustrating that I know something was following me but it continued to follow me without leaving a trace. I know, that was how stalkers worked if they were trained like a ninja to kill from the shadows with not a hair left behind.

Hmm...ninja...

A dim light bulb just lit itself from inside my head.

"How are you, Joshua?" I asked.

I heard a gasp followed by a yelp and a sound of someone tripping. I turned to see it was him. Joshua was rubbing his dirtied cheek before looking up at me. "You knew I was following me?"

"Let me explain," I started as he got up from the floor. "I had a hunch it was you who was following me. I have been thinking about it since I have arrived here in the castle. It didn't come to me so fast but when it did, well let's just say that there were steps and here is how it went. When I revisited the first place where I had started getting such feeling, I had noticed many things." I raised a finger to start. "On top of the wall where all of the equipment of various uses, I had found this piece of clothing..." I showed him the torn piece I had taken from the place. "Taking a look at it, it was a coat that was torn by the nails from a barrel. Speaking of barrels, there also was something conspicuous by the barrel. A smell, to be precise. By the smell, I could tell it was cologne. Paired by the spit on the ground, I could tell that someone had spent their time up there longer than any worker, sleeping to be precise. Someone was sleeping on the job. But why would a worker of the wall sleep in such a place and wear cologne to such a workplace. Then, exhibit B!" I took out something that surprised him.

"A wristband?" said Joshua in surprise.

I rolled my eyes and nodded. Geez, he didn't need to be so into it. "Yes, and a named wristband. There were the initials JV on the wristband. Now, who would be dumb enough to leave their wristband, who had worn cologne in such a place and wore a coat? From my memory, only two of those things fit someone like a glove. But does this have something to do with the paranoia I was feeling? Yes, this person followed me closely with no suspicion. And combine that to the cologne, the wristband and the initials JV, I pieced it all together and I have solved it. It was you who was following me, Joshua Valenti!"

"Wow," he chuckled. "So that's how you found out?"

I grabbed his arm, pointing to where a wristband should have been, which was missing. I also had him look at the tails of his coat. Some pieces of its cloth were missing, practically torn from it. "It's called detective work, Joshua." I was about to scold him some more for being such a lousy ninja when he had run up to me and hugged me with full force. "I'm so happy that you're alright! Are you hurt? Did I scare you? Why'd you have a fight with a house wife?"

I pried myself out of my friend's grip. "Let go!" I told him, pushing him away from me. He released me from his death grip. I looked at him warily. "What happened to me? Forget that! What happened to you? You're not yourself."

He gave me a confused look at first, but then smiled. "I'm sorry, Eliot. I was just worried. I thought something happened to you."

I straightened myself from the death grip of my friend before speaking to him. "As you can see, I'm alright and my paranoia was reaching its limits because of your ninja-ness."

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "I was following Baku's plan so I couldn't get to you immediately."

_Baku's plan? I didn't know Baku had a spot for Joshua._

"He was reluctant at first. But he let me join temporarily."

_Something is wrong here. Baku wouldn't just let him join like a snap. Unless there was-_

My short thought was rudely interrupted by a hand waving in front of my face. I swatted Joshua's hand away. "You alright? You froze for a moment."

"I'm fine," I told him, annoyed that he had cut off the thought I was about to form.

He crossed his arms at me. "No need to be mad."

"I'm not mad." I said, trying to hide a scowl before he saw it. Unfortunately, he did.

"Yes, you are" he pointed out.

"I'm not childish enough to do this, Joshua. I'm not mad, period!" _Like it wasn't obvious enough._

He frowned at me."Sorry for pointing it out then! No need to be like that, you know."

I mentally slapped myself. _What the hell?_

"Well, if that's all you have to say, I'll head back. Feel free to stalk me and cause me to die of paranoia." I started leaving him.

"No need!" he said but I ignored him. "I'll join you."

"Whatever. Do what you want."

***-FF-* *-Joshua Valenti-* *-FF-***

Eliot looked fine when I saw him, except for his rising tension from the shadowing I did earlier. He was normal, despite being kidnapped and put in a fictional game that he was playing earlier with his friends. No surprised reaction, no angry complaints, nothing! It was like he didn't even care about where he was. He was definitely normal since he detected me following him in secret, one of the perks that he had after we became friends.

But he didn't talk about it. Not one thing about this even that we were in. We were making our way back to the two kids he accompanied on the way to the castle. Vivi and Puck were the names of aforementioned kids, if I remembered the game correctly.

Eliot suddenly stopped. I stopped just in time before I could bump into him. "What's wrong?"

He put his hand on my mouth. "Quiet," he whispered. Eliot removed the hand and motioned to follow him. I nodded. The two of us quietly sneaked to a corner, seeing a few Alexandrian Knights around the corner.

"Let's wait for them to pass," I said.

"No time Joshua, the part where Zidane, Garnet, and Steiner appear onstage will be happening in a few minutes. We don't have time to watch people doing their best to imitate a statue." He was right. At this moment, Zidane and Blank would have the princess by now. There was no time to be idle.

"I have a plan," I told him. He nodded, signalling me to go on. "I'll be bait and I lure them away so you could get back. I'll join you later."

He thought about the plan for a moment before replying. "...Okay, I'll take your word for it," he said. "Hope you make yourself good bait." Eliot walked back and hid himself.

Once he was out of sight, it was my time to move. I turned to the corner, taking in a big breath and yelled. "Hey! You knights over there! I just stole something from the royal chambers! Catch me if you want it back!" Immediately, I ran back where Eliot and I came from. Yells of "Get him!" or "Don't let him escape!" echoed from the hall and several footsteps followed with clanking of equipment. They turned from the corner and saw me. I waved at them and ran. _I hope this won't be a repeat._

***-Chapter End-***

**There! I finally decided to end this chapter. Eliot's ramble on how he found out it was Joshua was kind of random to me. But I'll let it live here. Tell me what you think in the reviews. It will help me get better and update faster. And your reviews can help with my bunny problem too!**

**Wyxlan out!**


	8. Chapter 8:  All Aboard!

**What's up and welcome to another chapter! Now we move on to Chapter 8!**

**With the review I received last time, I did my best to get this out as fast as I can. Reviews are motivation to me and they give me that to make more chapters. It makes the writing faster. Let's continue on to this very long chapter ahead, shall we?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. SquareEnix, formerly SquareSoft, owns them. I just own the OCs.**

**Chapter 8 – All Aboard!**

***-Eliot Fletcher – Chapter Start-***

The shadows of the stone statues had fit me very well. It really hid every part of my body from the eyes of any unwanted eyes that would yell 'Trespasser in the castle! Capture him and throw him in the dungeon' in seconds. That would not be good. I was not a fan of dungeons. Imagine the horrible germs and hungry rats waiting for me down there. Oh and the rotting corpses there too. No one forget the corpses when they visit a dungeon. What monster would forget?

"Get him! Don't let him escape!" a voice echoed from the end of the hall. I sunk deeper behind the shadows when the voices got louder. Feet were stomping on the floor followed by the loud clanks of their armor. I saw Joshua's figure pass from my hiding spot. Crazy as it might be, I thought I saw him grin at me for a second as he passed by before looking back to the chasing knights. "Double time guys! You can't catch me if you're not trying!" he taunted, blowing a raspberry childishly at the Alexandrian knights before running off down the hall. A number of knights passed by, differing from men to women but I wasn't able to tell how many they were.

_They're being stupid,_ I thought. _They won't be able to get him. It would be fun to watch though. But I have somewhere I needed to be._ I stepped out of the spot, taking a last look at the hall where the knights chased him to before leaving the castle, intending to rejoin Vivi and Puck.

"Where've you been?" Puck asked, not showing a hint of worry. Vivi was the one who was worrying; I felt his worry from the way he looked. So I took it upon myself to cover what I did.

"The wash room."

"For more than fifteen minutes?"

"The line was long," I said, not paying attention to the rat boy. I was more interested on the stage crew putting some decorations and props on the stage. The play took a break, it was declared exactly when I returned. Nobles and rooftop spectators took the time to stretch their legs and go to the wash room for themselves. I would bet it would have a long line right about now. Puck also used the time to take a break, leaving Vivi and I behind the chairs. The black mage told me that the play would return after a few minutes. Since we were just waiting with nothing to do and I was getting bored, I asked Vivi about his thoughts of the play so far. His reaction was a positive one. He liked the play as it got farther and farther into the story. The romance of Marcus and Cornelia was loved by everyone in the audience, even the mage himself.

People started flowing back in, nobles and citizens alike. Puck also returned. I could care less if he came back with a dismembered arm in his mouth. The play resumed after the people were seated once again, with Baku signalling the return of the play from its recess.

I remembered hearing Zidane and Blank back in the castle before I met Joshua. So if it was right, it was almost time to join Tantalus on stage. I better get ready. The first thing I didn't want to do was to get killed either by the Alexandrian knights or blown to smithereens by a bomb. And those won't be pretty.

***-FF-* *Joshua Valenti* *-FF-***

My back felt the clothes stick with sweat as I leaned on the wall. I slowly sat down on the short stairs near the water just outside the castle. Sharp, confined breaths were the only noise around, not counting the soft waves of the water and the loud cheers of the audience watching the play, because it was coming from me. I wiped the sweat coming from my forehead with the hem of my shirt. The knights were so far behind I think I left them in my dust. Obviously, there were no annoying sounds of metal from all the movement that the knights made. They would quickly spot me in this open area if they were following me. I probably lost them inside. Baku was right. They were not really the most organized kind of military. Maybe it was because of their lack of leadership at the moment. The plan did have a minor case that. I just wonder what would happen if a war broke out.

Nah, best not to think that kind of stuff. Not really a good thing to wish for a war any people could not win.

_At least Eliot is fine now._ I didn't have to worry about him being lost. But now I have to worry about another thing, if he'll be okay. What if the knights found where he hid? Behind two large sets of armour was not a good hiding spot. Anyone could have seen him. _I have to go back!_

"I think this is the way!" a knight yelled out. I leaned back more and hid my legs closer to the wall out of instinct. My breathing slowed down to a soft and steady pace in an effort to be unheard by the passing knights. Footfalls accompanied with the noisy clanking of armor hastily walked near the resting place of his. I felt them move closer and closer to my spot. Then they stopped.

"Can we take a break?" a male voice asked, panting.

Someone made an annoyed sound. "Can't you stop complaining and start doing your job?" the other, sounding like a woman's voice, told him

"But I'm tired!"

"No breaks until we find this guy!"

A new pair of footfalls started to approach the two arguing knights. "Excuse me, what's going on?" another voice asked. _Hmm, that voice. A woman – no, it sounds younger – is it a girl's voice? It sounds familiar._

"Huh? You haven't heard?" the male knight asked. "There's this guy who got in the castle and we're trying to catch him."

"Really?" the girl sounded like she didn't believe him.

"Yeah really. Where were you anyway?" the woman asked the girl.

"Oh, I was with Irvine," she replied meekly."He insisted that I patrol outside with him."

"Corporal Ire?" the woman said in disbelief, mentioning some sort of weird nickname to the man mentioned as Irvine. "You should let him be. The more time you hang with him, the less chance of you climbing the ranks."

"He seems nice though."

I heard the male snort. "Listen to her, Helena. You're gonna get yourself stuck in being a Private as long as you continue to hang with him."

There was a momentary silence between the three. I lay there with their silence, still keeping myself from making a sound. If there was a time that I needed to move to avoid being numb, this was it. Of course, having a numb leg was a bad thing if you were trying to escape especially now. If they ever spot me, I'll be caught since I couldn't get away by just limping. So I outstretched my legs, giving them the freedom it needed.

"Did you get a good look at the trespasser?" asked the girl.

"Yeah," replied the guy. "This guy had black hair, tanned skin, looked lean and wore this kickass coat."

I heard the girl mutter something but I couldn't hear it.

"Great, first there was that stunt made by some crazy teenager jumping off roofs, and now this!" the older knight groaned.

"It's the same guy..." the girl muttered, this time it was loud enough to be heard by me. But it wasn't just me who heard it.

"What do you mean?" both of the knights asked. "You know this guy?"

_Yeah, what did she mean by that?_

"No," she answered immediately, for some reason. "I was the one chasing that teenager on the roofs earlier with Corporal Irvine."

My eyes widened. "So that's her," I muttered silently to myself. _That's why her voice sounded familiar._

"And he got away?" the guy said. "Wow, you're like the fastest recruit we have this year! How'd he outrun you?"

"He um, he was good at...at jumping over stuff," Helena lied, her voice sounding embarrassed at her 'failure'. I remembered her letting me get away. She told me that she was going to help find my friends. Perhaps that was the reason she was patrolling. Note to self, thank her when I see her.

"A-anyway, we should hurry up and find him. Maybe we can talk him out of this." Her voice, despite the slight stutter, sounded determined.

"Whatever," the older knight said. "You know he's gonna get punished for this despite anything you say." _At least she was honest about it._ I really didn't want to be caught now after she said that. If that were to happen, well I didn't want to think about the negatives for now.

That was the final words I heard from them as they ran to where I would be located. Without them around, I stood up with a little difficulty due to the numbness I was feeling to my leg. Stretching was the first thing I did after standing. I would need it if I wanted to reach the Prima Vista in time for the finale.

I ran to the opposite way the knights went. Since the path to the ship was being used by the knights, I couldn't risk being followed by them and be captured with the rest of the crew. So I was going to take the scenic route. And by scenic route, I was going to go over the scene. I saw what the thief and the princess did earlier before I met up with Eliot. That's my way back to the ship.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

"Why did...this tower...have to be...so...tall...?" I asked myself in between breaths. It was very tiring going up the tower where I planned to enter the ship from. The staircase was longer than I thought. Seriously, it was like climbing for miles without even stopping. My chest was already heaving when I got close to the exit, to my content. I was beginning to calm myself, until I went outside.

The wind of the night was slightly cold similar to the earlier breeze of the evening. Its slow passing of the weather gave me a short shudder from the sweat mixing with the coldness of the wind. Above the tower gave me a view of the whole area where the play was being held. Many of Alexandria's people, let it be commoner or noble, they were there. Of course the nobles have the closest seats, not including the royalty whose location was better than the nobles. Commoners, on the other hand, were only watching by the rooftops, which they already left no vacancy open for. I looked around the crowd of commoners, trying to look for my friend. He was not in that crowd. But when I looked right below, he was already sighted along with two children, one wearing a coat much larger for him along with a bended hat and the other having rat like features. Eliot was watching the play but didn't look like he was enjoying it. That was to be expected from him since he was easily bored with anything that looses his attention.

I shifted my focus on the play. It was already nearing its climax. King Leo already had Marcus in his custody, waiting for the bell to ring to signal his execution. "Good thing nothing has yet to happen," I told myself, confident about the group's performance to do their job with no mistakes.

That was until I saw something happen on stage. After King Leo was in the middle of reciting his line, a hole opened on the stage. King Leo, Marcus and the masked lookalikes Benero and Genero stared at the rising figures. It was Zidane and someone wearing some sort of hooded cloak. Another hole opened up next to it, with it was another knight, but unlike the two who came first, he was not recovering from the confusion as easily as they did. The four, excluding King Leo, the hooded person and the confused knight on board, did the Tantalus salute thing. The play continued and I waited on the tower since there was nothing I could do yet. At least Eliot was okay.

***-FF-* *-Eliot Fletcher-* *-FF-***

_Oh my freaking God! Does the play never end?_ I was getting impatient at the play for not ending as fast as it could be. Was there any button I could use to skip a scene here? That would be useful right about now! Marcus and Cornelia reunited just moments ago. The scene, bleh, it was not my cup of tea with all of that gross romance. At least now I was sure that watching the play was not my original intention since arriving in this world.

I closed my eyes and focused in blocking the play out of my head. Rubbing my hat in escalating impatience, I tried to drown out the play out of my head. It was getting annoying hearing those lines being spouted by Marcus and Garnet. Oh I knew it was her. Anyone who played the game would know. Hell, anyone who at least played it once would! For those who didn't know, Garnet, the person on stage wearing the white mage cloak, was the princess that was going to be kidnapped, who in turn also wanted to be kidnapped for – sorry spoiler alert for those who didn't know the history.

And further more –

There was a collective gasp that interrupted that thought. "No!" Vivi cried, grabbing my shirt. His voice stopped my train of thought and parked in the station permanently. I opened my eyes and saw him looking away from the stage. When I looked, I could only sigh in joy. Finally! Marcus 'accidentally' stabbed Cornelia/Garnet. The play was now ending; it would only be moments before we get on the stage ourselves, which I will be anticipating.

I looked up at the elephant queen. She was crying, which made the act even disgusting to look at. She was even shaking and wailing for Pete's sake. Oh my, the fats in her body started doing the worm, every part of it! Quickly, I averted my eyes away to avoid the chance of throwing up in my hat, which I won't even do to my precious hat.

"Wow, what a show!" said Puck, who was shaking not due to the drama of the play but to excitement for some reason.

Vivi sniffed. "Yeah, so sad..." he agreed, wiping a tear off his face with a gloved hand. I just made a sound in agreement to them.

"I'm glad we climbed all the way over here. How 'bout you?" the rat prince turned to the side. I followed his gaze and saw another thing I was waiting for: a pair of the Knights of Pluto, Haagan and Weimar, charging us. "Uh-oh! Look out!" Puck jumped in surprise and ran to the opposite direction.

"Let's go Vivi!" I immediately grabbed the black mage's hand and followed Puck.

"Stop, you!" yelled Haagan.

"Come back, trespassers!" joined in Weimar.

We ran around the noble audience until Vivi tripped, in turn tripping me as well. Puck looked back but didn't stop. "Fools! I'm outta here!" he yelled.

"Coward!" I yelled back. I knew that wouldn't do something, seeing that he continued running and didn't look back after that. Hagan and Weimar were coming fast. I got up and helped Vivi to his feet. "Come on, Vivi. We need to get out of here."

He nodded and we headed up the stage, as the plot dictated. The pair followed us onto the stage. "Leave me alone!" the black mage yelled. The entire cast, including the impromptu addition Steiner with the exception of Garnet who was being successful at being dead, was still in character grieving at the 'death' of Cornelia/Garnet and Marcus as we tried to get away from the knight. We jumped over her 'dead' body. Weimar and Hagan stared us down across her 'deceased' corpse, landing beside Marcus, their hands preparing to grab the hilts of their swords.

"Don't come any closer!" Vivi exclaimed, his voice trying to be threatening as he can. But the knights didn't even flinch. They stepped forward, not paying attention to his words. That was when Vivi unleashed a burst of fire from his hands. The fire touched the cloak of the fallen princess instead of the pair, whom flinched when they saw the magic happen before their eyes. I wanted to say to the black mage to 'Aim a little higher dude.' but I was too late when the she came back to life or more likely his fire spell rekindled the flame of life, all pun intended.

"Ow! That's hot!" the supposedly dead princess yelped when Garnet jumped to her feet and discarded the burning cloak and tried to kill the fire that almost spread to her own outfit. That tight, sexy, orange outfit...Wow, seeing her in that outfit in real life made her sexier that seeing her in pixels inside the television. No, no time for thinking about sexy Garnet when there was going to be a fight.

"Zidane! It's time!" I heard Baku say. I looked around and saw Zidane nod to their leader, Marcus stretching as he was getting up and Steiner still panicking after seeing the princess almost burn. I heard a slight bump and turned towards it. It seems that Vivi tried to run in his panic after using a fire spell but he tripped only a few feet away from the group. I ignored the main group's conversation in favor of the little boy.

I walked to him and helped him up. "You okay?"

He fixed the hat on his head and nodded. "I just tripped, that's all..."

"Hey!" someone called from behind. I didn't need to turn to see who it was since I already knew who it was, the thief Zidane and Princess Garnet. "You okay!" he repeated my own question.

"We're fine," I replied, straightening myself and dusted off my clothes.

Metal clanged as Steiner jumped up and down in anger. "Princess! I cannot allow you to go!" he said. The captain pointed at us and ordered his knights. "Seize them at once!"

Haagan and Weimar saluted and drew their swords. _Uh oh!_

"Uh oh is right," Zidane said, taking out his pair of daggers. "Get ready guys!"

Garnet took out her rod and Vivi was already holding his staff. I went for my own weapon, and then I released something wrong in this picture. "I don't have a weapon," I said in a deadpan tone.

And then the fighting started with a yell from Steiner. Zidane, being the more experience fighter on stage, took on the leader of the Knights of Pluto while Garnet, Vivi and I stood back while Marcus was with us. But without anyone to fight, Haagan and Weimar turned their focus to us. I turned to Marcus. "Hey, do you have a spare sword I could use? So I won't die in this fight?"

Marcus gave me a look and then back to the pair. "I'd get you one if I could. But we're in quite a pickle right now."

_Of course. Well, it didn't hurt to try. But those would hurt if I get hit by one of those._ I thought, eyeing those sharp swords the knights wielded. Haagan was the first to act, charging towards us. The bandana wearing thief intercepted him. The two went at it, only leaving Weimar to us, a white mage with healing and sealed summoning magic, a black mage with badass black magic, and a weapon less teen that couldn't do a thing without a fricking weapon!

"You shall be capture for your actions!" exclaimed the chubby knight, pointing the weapon to us. He charged with his sword, attempting to slice us.

"Stay back!" I told Vivi and Garnet. I stepped forward to separate myself from them. I was going to let this guy focus on me so the princess and the kid won't get hurt. Hey, at least that was better than staying in a corner and wait for the fight to end.

"How about you?" Garnet asked, holding her weapon tightly.

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I'll be fine."

When I returned my attention to the fat Alexandrian, my eyes went wide. I grabbed my hat and ducked, his sword almost cutting my head off my shoulders. "Hey! Watch it!" I yelled at him. Then he attempted to slice and stab me again and again. He tried a vertical slice at me but I hastily dodged to the side. His sword was caught on the wooden floor of the stage. I saw the opportunity to do something, so I punched him in the face. The hit made him take a step back. "Ow!" I shook my hand from hitting his chubby face. To make it worse, Weimar recovered so fast and pointed his sword at my throat before I could get away. I raised my hands in surrender. "Umm...parlay?"

To my surprise, a ball of fire passed me and hit the knight right on his gut. It knocked him down, his sword down on the floor right next to my feet. I looked at Vivi holding out a hand and gave a sigh of relief. _Magic, I love it. Thank you Vivi!_

Weimar groaned, rubbing the burned portion of his armor. "That hurt," he muttered.

"Ahem!" he looked up and surprise covered his face. Before him was me standing over the knight with a smirk, in hand was his own weapon pointed at his throat. "Don't you have something else to do?"

Fear quickly glazed over his features. He trembled under his armor and started stammering. "I-I'm gonna be late f-for my date!" he remembered. He hastily crawled away and ran from the fight and from the stage in a snap. I never saw a chubby guy like him move so fast like him. With Weimar gone, only Steiner and Haagan were left. "You guys try and help Zidane," I said to the two mages. "I'll go with Marcus."

I ran to Marcus, but their fight was already over when Marcus was doing his victory sword swings and Haagan running away saying his fury ends. He saw me with a sword over my shoulder. "Good, you got your own weapon."

"I had to improvise," I shrugged at him. "We should help out Zidane and the others." I pointed to the monkey tailed thief fighting with Steiner. He nodded and we went.

Zidane was trying his best to get the knight to stand down, but he wouldn't falter in his cause to get the princess. He swung his sword at the thief, he dodged it with ease. Marcus went in, his sword greeting Steiner's own. I followed his example. Marcus jumped to the side, avoiding another slash, in which I replaced him and hit the knight's sword with my own. I saw his face put on a puzzled frown. "Aren't you the food inspector?"

I gave him a sly smile over the crossing of our swords. "Let's just say I had a change of jobs."

He broke off the standstill by pushing me back, pointing his weapon at me menacingly. "Scoundrel! I will have you hanged!"

"You know, you should start doing something to back that up instead of talking," I said in a deadpan tone. Agreeing to what I said – in which I didn't want him to – he started attacking us. Being the less experienced in using a sword, I was always in danger when Steiner was going for me, between Zidane and Marcus since I was an easy target. His attacks were so hard I couldn't keep a steady grip on the sword, and since I couldn't get my grip straight I couldn't hit the man with a counter attack of my own, leaving that to the more agile Zidane. It was a pain in the ass.

So the smartest thing to do was to stand back and let the thieves and knight battle out. I might as well bring out the popcorn if this would take time to finish. Maybe add a little commentary to it. _And Steiner charges with his sword. Would you look at that form folk? Captain Steiner looks like he could take these two interlopers to Alexandria Town Square and back. But Zidane and Marcus aren't about to give up, not with those determined looks on their faces._

Or maybe do a little gambling. I'd be asking Garnet if she'd like to bet who would win. Knowing the game, I would win. Now I was thinking I could goad her into betting her whole family fortune. One wise person did say: "If stranded in an unknown land, everything is at your disposal." You might ask who said that. That would be my own secret.

"Look out kid!" Marcus shouted. I snapped back into reality and looked at where the knight was going. My eyes widened. He was going for the two mages in the back, specifically Vivi. My legs quickly moved, running past Marcus who was just pushed away by him. Vivi was frozen, unable to move and Garnet was occupied in heal Zidane with her magic, leaving her defenseless. He was halfway in bringing down the sword when I reach them. I tried to raise my sword to block it. But my grip on the hilt was unsteady from running. His sword came in contact, not on my sword but to the skin of my right arm. I yelled out, my hand releasing the weapon from the sudden feeling of pain. He wasn't done, he slashed at my torso. I barely got to jump back but he got a nice line of pain on my abdomen. Steiner used his armoured hand to knock me down, painfully.

"Gah!" I yelled out. The hit was not as deep as I thought but it was slowly pouring blood. I covered it up with a hand. It was not the best solution but it was the only thing I could do. My weapon was too far to be retrieved and quickly attack him without being hit again. "Not the brightest idea I had today," I told myself.

"Eliot!" I heard someone call. It wasn't Vivi but a different voice. The voice sounded far away. Steiner looked away for a moment, his eyes became saucers. Out of nowhere, a flying foot hit him in the face. If I was crazy, I'd say someone threw a literal foot went flying and hit him. The figure landed right in front of me. I squinted to see a bit better at this person. From the masculine outlines I could tell this person was a guy, no doubt. No chick would be that fit and still be a girl. This guy took out some sort of short blade from his coat, not short enough to be called a dagger and not long enough to be called a sword. He charged the knight with such speed it would make the runners in my school blush in embarrassment. Steiner was even surprised at this. He moved so fast it disoriented the knight. Quick strikes using the blade came towards him. He tried his best to block every single one of them but some broke through his defenses, slicing several points of his armor, arms and legs. He stopped as Steiner retreated a few steps from him. "Bah! Only a flesh wound!" he said, panting. He fell to his knees with his sword used to steady himself.

Wow, that was...so depressing. Seeing that kind of fighting really dampened my pride on my fighting skills but my skills were of someone who just recently picked up a sword and started calling himself a master swordsman, to summarize an idiot swinging a metal stick.

"You alright?" I heard him ask. I looked up and this time it was my eyes were as large as saucers.

"Joshua?" I said his name in a confused tone. "How the hell..?" He lowered a hand to help me up. I grabbed the hand and he pulled me up.

"Took you long enough, Joshua," said the approaching Zidane.

"I was just sight seeing," he said to the thief, pointing to a tower across the audience.

I felt a hand touch my slightly bleeding arm. I flinched at the gloved touch. "Do not worry. I'm going to heal you." I remained tense but I knew from the soft voice it was Garnet. A bright light came from her hand as she faintly touched the bleeding part of my arm. It shone bright, a relaxing feeling came from the light and the moments later the flesh wound on my arm was gone.

"Thank you," I muttered to her. But I didn't pay much attention to her reply as she continued to feel my injuries. Soon, the wound I had on my abdomen was all gone. For once, I was glad that someone knew first aid, or in this case white magic.

"So you know this guy?" Marcus asked Joshua, nodding his head at me.

The raven haired teen nodded in reply. "He's one of the friends I was looking for."

Once he said this, Zidane's face became curious. _I don't like that look._ He was about to say something when the ship shook. Oh, it was time to book it. Time to leave Alexandria! All aboard the Prima Vista! Sit down and get your seatbelts strapped on because we're finally starting this adventure. Destination: Evil Forest via Crash Landing.

The ship slowly rose from its placement by the castle. Standing was beginning to become a hard thing to maintain for obvious reasons. My legs gave out on me from being tired and the hard tremor like feeling. Even Joshua wasn't able to stay standing, knowing the guy for having the best balance out of all the people I knew. Zidane managed to catch Garnet. Vivi had been able to walk a little towards me before stumbling on my back, gripping my clothes trying to find his balance. Steiner wasn't doing better. His tired body kept him from standing but the knight had spirit, using his sword still as his crutch to at least keep him from falling off the ship.

The Prima Vista started to turn to the opposite direction. It started its ascent slowly but it was not going fast enough. Many of Alexandria's soldiers were running around the castle, with Brahne barking out orders for them to follow. She was harshly telling one soldier to do something, with her saluting and running off. I could see her angry glare directly pointed at the ship, mostly to her daughter Garnet. She continued waving for something to come, and then cannons came out of the castle, shooting out large harpoons at the ship.

"Look out everyone!" Joshua shouted. Harpoons came flying fast. There were harpoons that embedded themselves on several parts of the ship. Zidane, Vivi and Garnet managed to get away from the incoming harpoon that hit the stage. Marcus and Steiner rolled in one direction to barely evade the incoming pointy death. When I looked up, I made a face and said: "This is one horrible day..." Before the harpoon made a more painful injury and impaled my torso and split it from my lower half, I felt something push me off my spot, sending me far back into the stage.

Who the hell pushed me? I have half a mind to push that person off a cliff, and the other half agrees. I raised my head and started to redact that thought, well not completely. That idea sounded a lot useful for getting information, plenty of fun, or throwing your son off to have a deal with a devil and start a tournament in where he will have revenge, in which will start a fighting revolution, have a grandson who will inherit the devil from said thrown son and that grandson attempts to extinguish the bloodline for the next incoming tournaments, in where in the sixth tournament the roster will have more than forty people from all over the country. That was an excellent idea. Lee! Get in here and say your line!

Returning to the scene, the ship was slowly being pulled by the harpoons, battling with the power of the engine to escape Alexandria. If that wasn't the worst news I had today, a larger hole opened up above the queen's head, with a much larger cannon being pushed through.

"Oh shit, we're screwed!" I managed to yell from all the noise of the Prima Vista's struggle for freedom.

"What are you yelling about?" Zidane asked. I stared at him with deadpan look and pointed at the large cannon about to fire at the ship. He formed a face of surprised and an "oh" from his mouth.

"Obvious enough?" I said.

"Incoming!" Marcus yelled as the large cannon let loose its ball. It was still in mid-flight when it burst open, releasing a flaming head complete with eyes, nose, lips and arms, and all if it is burning. It gave us a chuckle meant to be menacing but I found it just so low it sounded like a slow moving truck.

"So, anyone up to running away to live for another day?" I asked everyone onboard. They just gave me a look and readied themselves to fight. Hey, I'd rather live for a day to die by a sword rather than die the lame way by large explosion.

"We can't just run Eliot," Joshua said; his blade out and held defensively.

"Why not?"

"Because we're already flying and jumping off can kill us." He told me.

_Huh, that is actually a good point, seeing my experiences with heights earlier in the day._

"It's an excellent point." I glared at Joshua.

"Have you seen where my sword got thrown... into?" Before I could get the question mark in, Joshua pushed the handle of a sword into my hand. "Uh huh, thanks."

"Your welcome."

"No, I meant thanks for not letting me finish before you try and kill me with this."

"Still, your welcome." Tch, stop that creepy smile your doing. It was creeping me out.

"It's not creepy. I'm being happy because you actually care." No I don't!

"Hey!" Zidane called from up front. "Focus! No time for chit-chat!"

Yes, we should focus in getting that stubborn knight of hers to turn around so he could stop being a jackass. To be blunt, he needs to get whacked by someone so hard in the back of his head, his brain would be reset. Well that was not blunt, that was all out cruel.

"Eliot," someone called. I looked to my side and found Vivi with a concerned look. "Are you sure you're all right?"

I nod to answer. I was just mentally telling myself that I could do this despite the odds of that bomb blowing up on our face while we stop the Princess' knight from being stupid. Yeah, that was it.

"Okay, if you say so," he said, gripping his staff. Dang it, I did it again. To the other's horror, the Bomb (the monster not an actual object that is called the bomb) lowered itself behind the knight. The knight, however, was bent on capturing us and turning us in for kidnapping the princess – even when she wished to be kidnapped – then and executing us. He looked better now than he was earlier after being beaten by Joshua in a so-fast-you'll-miss-if-you-blink moment.

Zidane was the one leading this fight, with his daggers by his side. Marcus and Joshua were by his side. I, on the other hand, was staying behind with Garnet and Vivi just like last time. Maybe this time, I'd avoid getting myself hurt.

Steiner growled at us. "You people will be punished for your actions!" he declared, readying his sword.

"Hey! Look behind you!" Zidane yelled.

Steiner looked at us with eyes full of contempt. "I'll not fall for such a trick!" The knight raised his sword to his ready stance and charged.

"Please, Steiner! Behind you!" Garnet yelled from the back of the group. Despite his own princess' efforts to stop him, he was still on the task to retrieve her.

"Surrender at once!"He demanded. His sword was brought down at the three in front. Marcus raised his own to block the metal. He quickly moved to his side when Zidane and Joshua went in. Steiner moved quickly for a man his size, dodging slashed from both the thief and their temporary member.

"It's a bomb!" the black mage yelled then hiding back behind to avoid the attention that could kill. My eyes widened when the Bomb evilly chuckled and grew.

"Holy shit..." I cursed silently. You know what, I'm not gonna stick around and let that hit my face.

"Where are you going?" Garnet asked, seeing me slowly move away from my spot.

"I...uh...was going to find the bathroom!" I lied...badly. I could see her look of disbelief directed at me. But I could seriously use the bathroom break right now. There was nothing wrong with one bathroom break. I'd like one bathroom break for every boss battle.

"You have to be kidding?" Zidane was glancing back to us. He must have heard that.

"Whatever," I said. Just don't get mad when that Bomb is not the only one that explodes later!

"I don't even want to know what that meant," Marcus said.

"It's growing!" Joshua yelled out. I turned and saw the Bomb still growing. It grew from the size of a small apartment bedroom to the size of a tank. But it didn't stop there. From that it grew to the biggest size a ball that could rival the globe in front of the Philippines' Mall of Asia – that I knew when I visited the place for the summer with an uncle of mine –and that one was humongous.

"It's gonna blow!" Marcus was the one who shouted this warning. The bomb chuckled and grinned evilly. That was one grin I didn't want to see.

"Get down everybody!" I shouted. Zidane and Marcus ran back to us, the monkey tailed thief got down to the floor, covering the Princess with Marcus beside him. I was about to do the same when Joshua tackled me – I resent that. He didn't need to spear me right into the freaking floor! – pulling the black mage with him. I managed to see Steiner, confused, finally turn around. He realized that we weren't lying as shock took over, falling down to his butt, when he saw the giant bomb growing, ready to explode any time like a brain tumour ready to have an aneurism.

If I ever heard a city wide horns blast my face a few feet before me that would have been just a whistle compared to this. The bomb erupted, intent on taking the ship with it. It was too close for comfort. My ears were ringing painfully from it. I was looking everywhere, everyone was saying something but I couldn't comprehend it. No sound came from them, just a stinging ringing originating from my own ears. So this is being deaf like. Maybe this isn't so bad. Think about it, no annoying voices to be heard, just the sweet silence around just like having the feeling of watching silent movies without the silly soundtrack. I could get used to this.

"-Eliot! Are you alright? Answer me!"

Ah, it was great when it lasted.

The smoke from the bomb explosion started to clear. I coughed, loud enough for Joshua to hear. That should say 'I'm alive and about to die if this smoke get inside me!'Before I could say something negative, I felt arms wrap around me, engulfing me in a hug.

"You're okay-"

"Not the time for hugging! Very inappropriate!" I said. He let go of me, but I saw him smile at me. I looked back, seeing everyone was okay. Well, Steiner was pretty much out of it since he received the brunt of the blast. But we were getting farther and farther away at Alexandria. From that, we were going to Evil Forest in a few minutes. Hmm, maybe I could get that bathroom break I wanted to use.

***- Chapter End -***

**Oh my, took me days to finish that, not to mention the continuous interruptions from school. Now that he group is out of Alexandria, they are heading to the Evil Forest. Will Eliot be able to handle the dangers of the cleverly named place? Can Joshua be able to protect his friend? When will Eliot use his bathroom break? Find out soon in the next chapter!**

**Wyxlan signing out!**


	9. Chapter 9: Landing the Hard Way

**Wyxlan here, coming back with a new chapter!**

***crickets chirping***

**Still nothing, huh? Why does this happen to me? I knew I should have written something before I begun my break. I blame my boredom for not releasing this fast enough. Oh yeah, beware of this chapter. It is sooooo long. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. If I did, I wouldn't be making a story of putting myself in it, I could have just made a character in the game for all the people who wanted in.**

**Chapter 9 – Landing the Hard Way**

***- Chapter Start -***

"_Data flow at maximum." One of the men said. "No digital interference found."_

"_Buffering next scenario, loading textures per instructions," another said. "Grid is still one hundred percent."_

_A man with slicked back hair walked into the room. His footsteps barely making a sound but his colleagues were already aware of his presence. In his hand was a silver briefcase, its contents were known to him and only him. He pulled out one of the chairs from the back of the room with him and sat on it. He let the briefcase on his lap, opened it and pulled out a laptop before closing it._

"_Status report," he ordered to his two colleagues in the room as he nudged his glasses._

_One of them turned their office chair to face him. "No problems, sir, just the basic maintenance that the Coders are giving off some slight lag to the system earlier before you arrived. It was only the daily maintenance, sir."_

"_What of the progress, then?"_

_Another swivelled around to face his superior. "They just started to pass the starting line, sir. There is still that case of her missing, though."_

_The superior opened the briefcase. In it, a laptop activated. Lines and lines of data streamed into his screen. "I want the subject found in the next two minutes, Charlie," the man ordered, he looked at Charlie, who just nodded and went back to his screen._

"_Search channels connected to cores one, two and six." He informed him."Deploying search drones in the matrix. Results will arrive in forty-nine seconds. Continuing manufacturing of algorithms. "_

_The man seated in the middle of the room with his briefcase opened, showing many passing lines of data on his screen, nodded. "Good." He said with his clear and authoritative voice. "Continue it. Make sure you keep monitoring them while you maintain the system. Drei!"_

"_Yeah, boss?" Drei turned from his screen and looked at his superior._

"_Measure the statistics, if you may. The usual will do."_

_Drei swivelled back his chair to his screen. "Measuring battle statistics, survival factor, and the like? Got it."_

"_Good," the man said. "Dismissed."_

_The man let a smirk crawl into his lips. 'Since the time I came here, things have change. This scenario just shows it,' he thought to himself. 'I know there will be progress I am sure of it.' He looked at his laptop, reading the data lines. Light from the laptop got caught on his eyewear, giving them – and the man, a sinister shine. The smirk became a full on arrogant smile. 'I know this will end the way I want it.'_

***-FF-* *-Eliot Fletcher-* *-FF-***

"Shit..." The ground shook from something far away. Sounds of fire burning around me stirred me from unconsciousness. Dark spots still filled my vision, blocking about a dozen holes in my eyes. Shit, am I blind? I blinked, slowly and carefully. As I continued, the spots were disappearing. But it was replaced with more darkness, accompanied with bushes and leaves of a dark shade of green and branches that looked so old and dead. At least I wasn't as blind as I thought. I was able to see the area with the moon's light, at least making it slightly better than just darkness.

The next thing I did was move my limbs. Hands and fingers check. Arms and legs check. Neck, oh shit, wait never mind, check. "Oh... God..." I groaned. I slowly brought my hands up and pushed myself off the ground. Despite feeling like jelly being mashed with a hammer, I got myself back to my feet, with no help from my right arm, which pain burned through like a passing stream of fire. I felt my cheek and my clothes a bit damp. Was I lying on wet ground? I hope so because I'm hoping I wasn't on the ground on the pool of my own pee. Disgusting...

I looked around my surroundings, while I held my arm in pain. I was alone in the dark in a forest filled with darkness and old plant life. I was seriously not like the area. Up the sky was rising smoke. Ahead seemed to look like a ship, where the smoke was originating. "That doesn't look good," I muttered. If the scene was right, then I could be in one of the dangerous areas in Gaia.

The Evil Forest.

A jolt of pain passed through my body. I must have fallen of the ship when it crash landed. If that wasn't the case, I would be in the burning wreckage, probably already dead from the look of the damage on the Prima Vista...

Suddenly, I liked being thrown off the ship better now.

I remembered from the stage of the ship that Joshua, who was beside me, holding on to Vivi, who was also by my side, and my clothes in an effort to not let us go flying into the air like the flying trapeze. As much as I wanted to slap his hand off me, I didn't want to abandon ship without any good reason.

Then, one of the rotors carrying the ship exploded. If that wasn't enough, the insides of the ship burst into flames. The ship shook violently from the small explosions inside the Prima Vista. We were quickly loosing altitude and our crash landing was not looking so good right now. My fears were being quickly realized.

We were going to land, painfully.

That was when Joshua quickly turned to me, his face was already painted full of worry. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get a word out, the ship hit the ground, shaking the ship violently. He lost his grip on me. I tried to grab anything near to stay on the ship, even tried to grab on the harpoon stuck on the ship's stage. But my hand was unable to reach anything. Another violent impact on the ship and it sent me away into the air, re-enacting the scene with the kid and the alien from E.T.

And finally I was here, injured and unable to walk in the Evil Forest. Great, not the first time I've been lost in the wild before. Well, first time in a video game, but still...

I took a step forward, only to stumble back to the ground. "Ah!" I cried out, holding my leg. Oh great, did I broke my leg while I tried to stand or something? Oh right, fallen out of a flying ship, durr...

_*Grrrr...*_

I froze. What the hell was that? Was that me?

_*Grrrr...*_

Slowly, I moved my head around. I tried to look for anything that would make that kind of noise, but despite the bright fire the Prima Vista was making, I couldn't see a damn thing.

"_I'm in a forest filled to the brim with evil plants and wolves." _I thought to myself. _"I'm alone in said forest filled with said monsters, no one else but me, a young teenager who could pass for a three course meal. I do not like those odds."_

I stood in my spot in silence, frozen to the core. I didn't want to give myself away to any predators in the area. If I wanted to, I'll just lie down and coat myself with ketchup, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and two huge loaves of bread and call myself an Eliot sandwich.

Then another sound came, a different one this time. _*Grumble...*_

I wanted to deny it, but the thought of monster teeth sinking into me was scarring the shit out of me. If it wasn't worse, more sounds came from the bushes behind me. This sound didn't stop just like ones before when they stopped after a moment. Uh-oh. Maybe their considering eating me now. Great, just when the experience in the forest wasn't getting any better. Or they increased in numbers. Isn't that just better! One was great but a pack, oh hell yeah! I am such an attractive guy, attracting predators, that is. I might as well wear a suit and put a hidden camera around here and say "I'm Chris Hansen and you are on 'How to catch a Predator'."

_*Grumble, grumble...*_

The noise grew louder. It was slowly approaching me, playing with my mind. Now it was taunting me. I won't stand for this. "Hey! If you're gonna rip me to shreds and eat me, you might as well do it now when I'm still half dying here with blunt force trauma and probably a broken arm!" I shouted. "I may be injured but I'm not going down like some wimpy appetizer-"

Out of the bushes, a figure came out. It was so sudden that I jumped up in surprise and then fell to the ground in pain in one simultaneous motion. "Shit." I cursed, holding my injured leg. The shadows hid the monster's horrifying features. It stood on its two legs; maybe it was one of those short man-eating goblins. The figure was taking its time in its approach, savouring the moment before it feeds on my soon-to-be dead body. I tried to reach for the sword I stole earlier from a Pluto knight, but when my hand went to the side, I only felt my damp clothes.

"My sword," I muttered. "Dammit..." My hand frantically looked for the weapon on the ground while I kept staring at its slow approach. "Where is it? Where the damn hell is it?" My hand stopped moving when the figure stopped steps before me. I guess this is the end of me, going to be the main course of a monster free-all-you-can-eat buffet. "Go ahead, eat me. I hope you get diarrhea."

"Hehehe," what the hell? This monster...was chuckling? Its chuckles went from the soft chuckles to a loud laughter. "Oh, wow. That's funny, man!"

"What?"

The figure stepped closer to me. The moon's light and the ship's burning flames illuminated this being's features. Shoulder length blonde hair, dark blue vest, separated cuffs around his wrists, daggers strapped on his waist, and a monkey tail. I narrowed my eyes at the familiar features. "You!"

"Yep! You okay?" he asked after finishing his laugh. "You really thought I was a hungry monster? Haha..."

All I felt right now was not fear, but shock and embarrassment, shock from being too close to death and the embarrassment from this monkey boy. After realizing this, I glared at the thief. "Yeah, sure. Just laugh at someone who just fell off a flying ship and almost die from injuries and paranoia. I hope it brings joy to you."

"Come on, here," he grabbed my hand and pulled me up. Too bad it was the one connected to the injured arm. I yelled in pain, holding my arm. "Oops, sorry about that."

"I bet you are," I deadpanned. "Why don't you just pull my leg too, I bet it would come off for your pleasure."

"Geez, you don't need to be like that," he said. "Just be glad that I found you from your ramblings and the noises your gut's making."

"I'm sure that makes you so good – wait, what noises that my gut made?"

_*Grumble, grumble...*_

"That," Zidane pointed to my stomach.

"What the hell?" I removed my hand from my injured arm and directed it at my stomach. Turns out, my stomach was making the noise. "I am such an idiot..." I groaned, slamming my hand on my face at my stupidity. _How_ _did I not notice my very own stomach making hungry noises? I'm supposed to be aware of everything! Paranoia power strike one!_

"Yeah, how does the all aware being didn't notice their own gut making all those loud noises?" Zidane asked, sarcasm being made here. I just gave him a glare and started walking. Immediately, pain coursed right through my leg and I almost fell back face first onto the ground if Zidane hadn't grabbed my arm, the uninjured one this time.

"Need help, there?" he asked.

I pulled my arm out of his grip. "I can walk." I tried doing so, but almost fell back to the ground. Zidane managed to grab me just in time.

"You don't look like you can," he said. "We're gonna have to let someone take a look at that leg of yours."

I sighed. "Fine," I gave in. "But no needles!" He was about to get my arm when I pointed at something.

"What?"

"That, can you get me that?"

His gaze followed my finger, seeing a thick branch broken from a tree on the ground a little far away. Zidane shrugged and walked to the branch I was pointing at. He knelt down and reached for it. In a split second, the bushes near him made a single sound that made both of us freeze.

"Uh-oh," I muttered.

The thief grabbed the branch to me and readied his daggers. "Uh-oh's about right," he said.

***-FF-* *-Joshua Valenti-* *-FF-***

_Oh...my head..._

_Did something...happen?_

My body felt heavy, like a thousand tons were put on it and left it on. I was lying on the ground, motionless. My eyes stared at the night. The night looked nice behind these blurred eyes. I couldn't move any part of my body as much as I wanted to, not a foot, not a hand, not even a finger.

_Where am I?_

My head painfully turned to the side. I felt my eyes go big.

Far away from me, the Prima Vista was there, burning. The inside was burning bright enough to give the surrounding area some light. I saw people running in and out of the hole made into the side of the ship, someone big beside the hole was yelling out orders before he went in the ship himself.

_The ship... where..?_

Seeing the danger so close, I immediately felt adrenaline running through me. I turned to my side, groaning painfully. I tried to stand, but I was feeling too weak despite the burst of energy I was feeling. By the corner of my eye, I saw someone turn to me and shout something. A few of the men who were carrying some stuff out of the ship dropped what they were carrying and ran towards me. The blur in my vision was fading so I was able to recognize them when they were close enough. The first one who came beside me was Marcus. Soon, two more came. These two were mirror images of the other, I figured only it was Benero and Genero. They stopped and took a look at me. I could hear them saying stuff, but I couldn't hear them, like they were on mute. Marcus started pointing at me and talking to the two. The two twins, if I could say that, looked like they were hesitating.

"_Don't move, kiddo. You're too banged up."_ I looked up and saw Marcus, talking to me. His words echoed like a ringing bell. I could only at him as a reply.

Two arms grabbed my own and I felt myself being lifted up to my feet. The two look-a-likes were beside me and carried me. They set me down on a wall in a sitting position. From that position, I could see my arms and a part of my leg bruised, my clothes were anything but ruined, which was a miracle since I was in a horrible crash with a ship.

Marcus knelt in front of me, holding out a small vial. _"Here,"_ he echoed. He opened the vial and brought it to me. He pulled my chin, opening my mouth, tilted my head back, and pouring the liquid in. I shivered as the cool liquid flowed down my throat. A strange sensation then took over. It made me warm for some reason. My body felt lighter than before. The pain I was bearing a while ago faded from my body. In a few moments, I could move my body again with no complications this time.

"There, good as new," said Marcus. "Nothing a hi-potion could fix." Great! My hearing's fixed too!

"Thank you," I gasped. I guessed I'm still not a hundred percent. At least I was better than a while ago.

"Can you stand?" asked the bandana wearing thief. I nodded. He gave me his hand and pulled me to my feet. I gave him another gasp of thanks to the twins before they went back to the ship.

"Is everything going to be okay?" I asked, looking at the burning ship.

"Yeah, everyone's putting out the fire in the Prima Vista. The fire in the engine room has been extinguished. The inside was saved and they're trying to get rid of the fire on the outside."

I stretched myself. "That's good."

"Cinna and the others are trying to salvage any remaining usable items and put it out here." He pointed to the pile of stuff beside a de-leafed tree with a moogle hovering on a branch.

"Okay. I should help out."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "I think you should stay here and rest," he told me. "No one can tell if some monsters arrive and start attacking us while we're trying to save people from the inside."

I sighed. "Alright..." I leaned back on the wall behind me. "I'm sorry to ask this, but how will I fight monsters without a weapon?"

Marcus took the sword on his back and gave it to me. "Borrow mine. Just don't let anything through." He grinned at me and clapped on my back before returning back in the ship, to help the other Tantalus members. I sighed. It was better than doing nothing. So I got myself to the tree that was mentioned a moment ago and leaned back. The moogle was doing its cute sound while it hovered. I was looking around, looking for anything suspicious. I didn't realize that the moogle went down from its branch and landed beside me.

"Hello, kupo!" it greeted.

I turned to it, startled a bit. "Ah, hello," I greeted back at the creature. "I'm Joshua."

"Nice to meet you, Joshua. I'm Mosco!" it said cheerfully, despite being a place called Evil Forest. "Are you one of them, kupo?"

"Oh, I am. Well, you could say I am but officially not. What's the word I'm looking for... temporary."

It nodded in understanding. They didn't really say I was a member. It would be a good idea since they didn't even know me at all. But we helped each other for a goal that each had at the moment. They needed a distraction. I needed help to find a friend. Mutual partnership was forged. Although I found Eliot on my own when I was in the castle, again for more distraction. But I did get separated from him immediately. Man that really sucked. Even if Baku said those knights were the lowest in rank, they didn't kid when they want to capture and throw you in the dungeon.

Speaking of a friend, where...?

Loud footsteps were being made behind me. Does thinking about a friend start trouble these days? If I knew how many times it happened today, I'd complain about it. I took hold of the sword's hilt as whatever behind it was approaching. The moogle yelped out a "Kupo!" and hid behind me. When the shrubs were split, I was ready to jump and cut it in half. But I immediately stopped when I recognized it was no monster but a pair of familiar people.

"Zidane! Eliot!" I called as I ran to them. The tailed thief was carrying an injured Eliot, who was using what looked like a large stick to walk.

"Hey Joshua! Can you help me over here? It feels like I'm carrying dead weight."

"I told you I could walk," complained Eliot. "I don't need a boy scout to help me walk. And besides, you'd be the dead weight if I didn't save your ass. You're welcome."

"You'd be too if I didn't get you away from your crazy rambling."

"And I gladly returned the favor," the hat wearer said, and then he lowered his voice to a light mutter. "Ingrate."

I chuckled nervously. "Come on, guys. Stop that." I took Eliot's walking stick and put his arm around my neck as we carried him. We put him down beside the pile, leaning him on the tree. He kept wincing from the injuries as we were slowly putting him down. For the third time today, I was worried for my friend.

Zidane huffed out a tired breath and straightened himself. "I'm gonna go check with the others. Can you look after your friend?"

I nodded at him. Zidane approached the hole on the ship and disappeared inside. I looked at Eliot, who was barely holding the stick as mouthing words to himself. _"I'm sure. I'm pretty sure that I can think of something. Goblins, flans, zuus, mages – three of them, there is a way. But I have to do something about this place first. I need to live. I'm already half dead from the ship, I don't even know how I'll do that."_

_There must be something I could help him with._ I thought worriedly.

_Cinna and the others are trying to salvage any remaining usable items and put it out here._ I looked at the huge pile of items beside us. Should I? This was all the remaining stuff that Tantalus had and I couldn't just take one thing from them. Stealing was clearly taught out of my mind. But it was for a friend...

"Kupo!" the moogle called. I saw it fly out of the huge pile carrying many vials in its hands, or what seemingly resembled as hands. I looked wearily at those vials. "Are those what I think it is?" I asked.

It nodded. Mosco pushed the vials onto my hand and then me towards Eliot. I was surprised at the force of the push that the moogle did. It almost made me miss my footing in front of Eliot. He quickly looked at me with wide eyes, expecting me to crash onto him. Good thing that there was that dead tree, as I grabbed it before I fell. If there wasn't, he would be in much more pain. He glared intensely at me. "Can you try not tripping on me? You'll kill me with those." He eyed the vials cautiously. He held out his hand in an effort to make me stay away for some reason. "What are those? Get those away from me. If you're trying to poison me, try not doing it directly in my face."

"These are not poisons, dummy," I scolded him as I uncorked one of the vials. "These are potions, meant to heal you not kill you. Now, sit still so I can give this to you properly."

"Oh no!" he said, now brandishing his stick to poke me away. "I do not believe you. I've seen poisons before and they look like that, bubbly and deadly green! Chemistry is in school for some reason, Joshua."

Judging a potion by its composition, how paranoid can you be? "You won't be recovering any time soon if you don't take this. So stop being a baby and take it already."

"I'll take my chances of dying without the help of a poison, thank you very much," said Eliot.

I groaned. "No time for this, Eliot." I grabbed him by his chin, pulled his mouth open and emptied it inside so quick he wasn't even finished saying the first part of "What the hell, Joshua!", it was what I presumed the words he was going to say. He choked a while, of course. When he was done, he had that face that looked like he just tasted the best drink he had in years. He took in the taste of the potion a little longer than I had. That was kinda worrisome. I was about to ask when he asked excitedly. "Was that apple or lemon?"

What kind of question was that? I was going to say something along those lines when he again interrupted me, grabbing another vial and drinking it in one gulp. "Yeah, that was definitely apple. Hehehehe," he said, all giddy all of a sudden. Eliot took another one and drank it faster than the last. Was that even possible? Before he could get another vial, I stepped away out of his reaching range. "Hey! I still need those!"

"What was that about "I'll take my chances with dying without the help of a poison."? Don't tell me you love poison already?" I remarked.

"Shut up, Joshua. You're clearly misled from what I said. I was in pain- delusional even! Now give me those or I'll...I'll...I'll poke you to death with this stick!" he exclaimed. True to his word, he started poking me with his almighty stick. I ignored him and returned the vials back onto the pile, thanking Mosco for his idea.

"Pfft, why do you have to be like that," he complained, finally calming down. I saw him look past me. "Monkey boy's coming back." The monkey tailed thief returned from the hole of the ship and approached us. "How are you guys holding up?"

"Peachy, just peachy," replied Eliot, back to his old self. "What's wrong with you, Zidane? You look like you're missing something."

"It's not something. It's someone," he said.

"Someone?" I asked.

"Yeah, it looks like the Princess is nowhere to be found. She's not in the ship or out here with the others," explained Zidane, looking at the unconscious band players stacked above each other next to the pile.

"She's not the only one missing," I told them. "That knight, Steiner, is also missing."

Zidane snapped a finger and looked at Eliot. "How about that mage you were with? Have you seen him?" He shook his head as a reply, much to our fear.

"So," I began. "We only have three people that we haven't seen since the crash. We need to do something about that. Any ideas on where they are?"

"Have you tried looking under the ship?" Eliot proposed, to which both Zidane and I had to look at him in horror. He shrugged. "What? You did say _ANY_ ideas."

I shook my head at him. "You're idea sucks," I told him. I turned to the only thief in the conversation. "What about you, Zidane?"

He grinned. Obviously, he had thought of something. "I'm gonna go in the forest to look for her. You can come if you like." Then he eyed Eliot, who was staring at him with nonchalance. "What about you?"

"What about me?" he asked back.

"You'll have to stay here just in case they come here," Zidane said. "Who knows if we'll find them while looking for the princess, right?"

Eliot gave Zidane an irritated look. He didn't looked too happy for the job he was given. Apparently, this didn't sit too well with him. He then calmly responded with a snort. "You wish monkey boy."

He crossed his arms in front of him. "Then tell me, how are you gonna fight without a weapon? You gonna poke them to death with that stick of yours?"

Hmm, good point. I didn't see him carrying that sword he took earlier.

He spent a few seconds thinking of something, which I find kinda awkward since he was looking at me the whole time. Eliot finally spoke, "That sword's not yours, right?" he asked, pointing at the weapon I was holding. I nodded my head. He then looked at the ship, where an emerging Cinna happened to be. "Just in time," he whispered. Eliot faced me and opened his palm in front of me. "Give it to me." I titled my head at him, frowning in confusion. _Huh? What does he mean?_ He pointed at the sword. "That, give the sword to me, Joshua," he ordered. Now that made sense. I handed him the sword without a word. He spun and walked to the opposite direction, to where Cinna was standing at. "Hey!"

The fat thief, ahem no offense, turned to the call. Eliot approached him. I looked on curious at what was he doing with the borrowed sword. "What is he doing?" I asked aloud, meant only to myself.

"Excuse me," he called for the other thief. Cinna faced him. From where I was standing, I could see he was kind off dumbfounded. Maybe it was because he was being approached by someone he never knew before. I didn't pay any more thought onto it when I shifted most of my attention to both of them. "Do you know Marcus?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?" he asked.

Eliot gave a sigh of relief, to my and Cinna's surprise, again. "Oh thank god!" he exclaimed, chuckling. "I've been looking for him. I couldn't find him anywhere! Believe me, I looked everywhere and I still couldn't find a single trace of him." He laughed at the supposed failed task he supposedly did. "Anyway, have you seen him? I've got something that he must be looking for."

Cinna could only raise his eyebrow at him as he replied, "Yeah, he's inside. But I think he's busy, well everyone is busy. Everyone's trying to kill the fires and save the equipment, boss's orders."

Eliot's shoulders slumped. "Really? So I can't get inside?" he wanted to clarify. I was thinking that that wasn't the message he wanted to send. Cinna nodded. He sadly sighed. "Great. Now what am I supposed to do with this?" Eliot held out the sword to Cinna. "Marcus will surely be looking for this, the _sword_ that _he_ _lost_," he said, emphasizing the last parts very well to the chubby thief, excuse me. If I didn't knew about emphasizing was for telling someone to really pick up on what one person was saying, this would be the time I learned it.

Cinna realized what the guy was saying. "Wow, you found his sword? I didn't know he lost it." He thought about it for a moment. "You know what? I'll do you a favor. Since you won't be able to go in the ship, I'll bring him his sword for you."

"Really? Thank you, sir!" said the now joyful Eliot, who was furiously shaking his hand and, if I was not mistaken here, on the verge of tears. "I won't forget this, kind sir. I really won't!"

Cinna chuckled as Eliot gave him Marcus' sword. "Don't worry about it, kid. I'll be sure to give this to him. I'll be right back." He saw Zidane and I stood by the dead tree. He waved at us. "Hey guys! You better find the princess before we blow another gasket." With that, he disappeared in the ship. Eliot turned to us with a smirk on his face, pulling his Gatsby with arrogance. "Clear!" he said.

Zidane actually returned his smirk with one of his own. "That was quite an act you pulled."

"I try," he said coolly. "Now, to solve our problems."

"What problems, if I may ask?" I asked my friend.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "If you haven't been paying attention, Joshua. You know, not having ANY weapons to defend us with."

"Ah..." I unintelligently murmured.

"Now shut up and help me find a useable weapon," Eliot ordered. I remember back home a particular homeless man diving in a dumpster, like a professional diver off the diving board, in an effort to find some food. Why did I remember that? Eliot did the same thing just now. He spent a few moments digging inside the pile while Zidane and I looked on. Then there was an exclamation from inside the pile. "Aha!" His head rose from the pile and with it a sword but more refined than the others had from what I saw. He got himself out of the pile and dusted himself. "This should do nicely," he said, looking at his fine discovery.

I approached the pile as he walked away from it. I spotted a brown tip in the pile that grabbed me. I held the tip and pulled hard. "Whoa!" I yelled out as I fell. "That was not how I wanted it to happen." It hurts, especially in the backside. I looked at the tip that I was holding. In whole, it was one of those sheathe with a white cloth tied to it. It was smaller than the weapons I recognized in the ship earlier in the day. It was too small and too thin to be a regular sword and too short to be a katana. "Is this a ninjatō?"

Zidane shrugged. "I dunno. This' the first time I've seen that."

Okay, I think this will do for now. So I tied the cloth on the back of my pants. I took the weapon and did a few practice swings with it. The ninjatō was lighter than I thought it would be. It has been a long time since I handled one though. But it was in an okay condition despite its old appearance. Once I was pleased with it, I returned it back to its sheath, not before I received looks from Zidane and Eliot. "What's wrong?"

Zidane let out chuckle. "I didn't know you were _that_ talented with weapons." However, Eliot crossed his arm in annoyance. "Show-off," he said.

Eliot took a spare scabbard from the pile and strapped it on his back. "Well? Let's just find the princess and get on with getting out of this hell hole."

Zidane stopped him. "Wait a minute. Do you even know how to fight with that?"

He shrugged. "What's so hard in stabbing and swinging like a madman? I'll do just fine."

With that, we departed from the Prima Vista and started to look for the princess. Eliot and I followed Zidane out of the huge log near the Prima Vista. Both of us had a firm grip on our weapons, preparation for any monsters that would attack. Monsters could pop out anytime and anywhere, with extreme prejudice. Eliot was being too cautious in this one. He would whisper that you would never know a monster is actually beside you. "Oof!" I bumped right into Zidane, who suddenly stopped. Eliot followed soon, bumping onto me, dropping his sword in surprise. "What the hell-" he was about to say when Zidane raised his hand, silently telling us to be quiet.

"I hear something," said the thief.

"No kidding, our footsteps in the water. Anything else to add?" Eliot remarked. I looked ahead and saw a familiar area that Eliot had told me a dozen times before. This is where that plant attacks with Vivi in it. Zidane silently made his way towards it. I waved to Eliot to follow closely, which led to him rolling his eyes in annoyance as he took his sword from the ground. The three of us were trying to walk towards the area without alerting any of the monsters nearby. Sure, they must be watching us in the dark. They're just waiting for that prompt to attack, like the whooshing sound and then battle music. I wouldn't know since I'm not from here.

"_Aaaaaaaaah!_"

"It looks like we found our damsels in distress." Eliot commented.

***- Chapter End -***

**Woooo! Finally got that out of the bag! I'll be starting on the next chapter. Giving reviews and putting me on alert are appreciated. **

**Wyxlan signing out!**


	10. Chapter 10: Doing Bad in Evil Forest

**Wow, I haven't updated for a long time, I guess right now is the right time to do so. It's been hard writing here since I get the case of writer's block and inspiration constipation (yeah, that's what I call it.) My inspiration is kinda somewhere else, and I'm kinda tempted to temporarily put this story on hiatus so I could use that inspiration. Still undecided on that though.**

**Oh yeah, thank you for the newest reviews I got, two of them actually, Cherie R. Lynn and Potato1. Onto the story!**

**Anyway, here comes the next chapter! We're in for a big fight!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the game Final Fantasy IX, Squeenix does. I, however, own my OCs.**

**Chapter 10 – Doing Bad in Evil Forest**

***-Eliot Fletcher – Chapter start-***

"AAAAAAAH!"

_It looks like we found our damsels in distress._

"Come on!" Zidane yelled before running off. We rounded the corner and past the clearing, lo and behold, we had arrived. Apparently, we were too late (not that I didn't complain since it is the story). Princess Garnet was inside the prison-like bars of the vegetable experiment gone wrong. Steiner was holding his weapon firmly, ready to attack while Vivi was frozen in fear on the ground, barely even moving, if you count the shaking. "Sh-she's in trouble..." I heard the black mage stutter. We ran to the knight's side, he looked like he was already prepared to slice open the vines that held the princess captive.

"Release the princess at once!" Steiner demanded. The plant shook menacingly, lifting its tentacles in the air. Zidane took that as his cue, taking out his daggers from his sides. I imagined the screen of my television being sucked into black and Battle 1 began to play, starting my very first battle in this universe. But I didn't have the luxury of having both. I didn't have a moment to get ready when the plant lashed out. My teammates dodged its tentacles by a single jump to the side. I, on the other hand, was staring at the incoming limb stupidly. Then it hit me...

"Oh, shit..."

...literally.

One of the tentacles made contact and I was on the ground a few feet away. "Eliot!"

I pulled myself back onto my feet and held the part of my mid section that was hit. Wow, I expected that to not hurt. I saw Joshua, who was checking me if I was okay. I waved at Joshua dismissively. "I'm fine," I said. He nodded and turned, just in time to duck an incoming tentacle. I grabbed my sword that was sprawled at the ground. I managed to get a glimpse of Vivi, who was still not moving from his spot. I turned to the others, who were now trying to kill the monster without including Garnet. But there was something wrong. In this battle, Zidane should have gone into Trance. And there he was, fighting the Prison Cage without the colourful transformation and the pink fur. Without Trance, we wouldn't beat the plant easily.

Zidane, ever the nimble thief, jumped and twisted over the incoming tentacle, with Joshua following him, surprisingly. The two were trying to close in the Prison Cage, but were denied with every opportunity when another tentacle whipped back, sending them back. Steiner was being slowed by other tentacle, defending himself from its strikes. Okay, I need to find an opening. I could charge from behind while it's busy with the three of them. But knowing this kind of situation from many TV shows and animes, it only worked in your head. No, this needed a bit of planning. I got that opportune moment when Zidane was sent to my feet and Steiner was hit by the plant, making him kneel in pain.

"Look out!" Garnet yelled from her prison. Joshua, who heard the loud noise of tentacle colliding with metal, looked back. The Prison Cage wrapped its tentacles around the distracted Joshua and the knight. _Good timing!_

I took a step back and then charged. Zidane, who was just recovering from an attack, saw me run. Then I jumped over Steiner, parkour style, and readied my sword for a strike. The Prison Cage saw me rushing for it and tried to attack, but Joshua drove his short blade into the tentacle, making it screech in pain and releasing him. It didn't waste time trying to recover. It quickly whipped its injured tentacle at me. I rolled under it just in time to avoid the appendage. I pushed off the ground and used the momentum to go faster. A blur landed beside me perfectly, it was Zidane, with daggers ready. At the corner of my eye, I saw the other tentacle coming, with Steiner in its grip. I tried to go faster since I didn't want to get hit by a big man in metal. Then Joshua came rushing with weapon in hand from behind it, attacking the plant with a quick slash. The plant tried to whack him deep in the ground, but he ran, towards us with the tentacle in tow!

_Whoa! Other way! Go the other way!_

I wanted to turn back, but if I did, the effort would be wasted. So I went on and ran as fast as I can, with Zidane in tow. Joshua nodded at us, smirking. Whatever he had planned, I hoped it was going to work. Then when he was a few feet in front of us, he went under our legs with a slide that would make any baseball coach proud if it won the World Series. But then the tentacle followed. Zidane jumped from behind and brought his daggers down, cutting off the tentacle before it made contact.

"Thanks!" I said as I went on. The Prison Cage was preoccupied with the others, leaving it open for an attack. I held my sword back and jumped towards the plant. It screeched at me, as if it was yelling at me to not do it. I thrust my sword at the monster, eviscerating it. Its tentacles went limp, as well as the rest of its body, save for the bars that kept Garnet on the plant. I pulled out my sword and let it rest on my shoulder, the metal coated with some strange vegetable oil not fit to be eaten with food anytime soon. "Gardening was not my specialty," I said coolly at the dead plant.

Beat...

"Uh, what?" Garnet asked from inside her cage.

Facepalm. "Nothing, it's nothing," I said. "Step back, I'm gonna cut it open."

I reared back, intending to swing at the bars. "Eliot! Watch out!" Joshua yelled out.

_What?_

I looked at the monster, which jumped back to life and smacked me right in the face with its injured tentacle, reintroducing me to the earth. Hello, ground. I missed you. How's the missus?

"Damn, that hurt," I muttered.

"Uh, guys," Joshua said, getting our attention. "That thing's still alive."

"Yeah, I _noticed_," I deadpanned, pointing to the red spot on my face left from the monster's 'love tap'.

"That's not all," he pointed out. He was right about that one. The plant was shivering, like it was cold. Well, I would be cold if a breeze came by and I had a hole in my abdomen. Cold as a corpse, that is.

Then it raised its only tentacle at the cage, grabbing Garnet's arm. Oh no.

A pink light swallowed the area. Along with the light came a goosebumps inducing scream. It lit up the area, making me cover my eyes. Once it was over, the light slowly died. In the middle of it was the Prison Cage, good as new as if it was just uprooted from the backyard. Oh man, now we had to fight it again. And I just delivered a sweet one-liner! Now that's considered null and void...

"No!" Zidane yelled from behind. A bright light lit as I turned around and saw Zidane change as well. He was now in his Trance form. Pink fur covered his entire body, and the rest was glowing with a low pink glow. The light died down a moment later, with Zidane bewildered.

Trance. Why do you have to Trance now? Why not minutes earlier? "Wh-What is that light?" asked the knight, looking at him with surprise and awe.

"I don't know," he replied. "Somehow, it raises my power."

This could not go any slower. "That light is Trance," I told them.

"Could it really be Trance...! I've heard of it before!" he realized. "Trance is induced by a-"

"Yes, yes, a surge of emotion." I added hastily. "I don't know about you but we can't talk forever with this thing keeping her in there." For that interruption I earned a glare from the knight, but I didn't care. If he wanted to save the Princess, he shouldn't go and open his blowhole while we have a monster in front of us, who I might add, had just healed itself using Garnet's own life.

"Alright, let's take him!" declared Zidane. The monster didn't like that and attacked. The thief, who was now a literal ball of energy, charged forward. The monstrous plant saw the color pink and immediately thought of it as a red cape as it was to a bull, focusing its attacks on him. He was a blur. He wove his way to the monster and slashed at it a couple of times. It couldn't get its tentacles on him, always on the move, doing a hit and run style on it. But when it did caught Zidane, it was our turn to go in. Steiner attempted to stab the monster with his sword. Joshua and I followed him and kept the other tentacle away from the big man. A slash later, it was again left with only one limb.

"Zidane!" I called the thief. "Use that Trance to kill it!"

"On it!" he said. "Just keep it busy until I could get one ready!"

"Oh my god! Really?" I whined. Joshua's response was more positive than mine. "Okay!" Great, in the game, he could do that in a snap but here when I can experience it he has to wait a moment? That's just total bull-

"Get down!" Steiner yelled. Joshua pulled me down to meet the ground for the third time in this fight. Seriously, I didn't need to be reacquainted with it anymore than it did.

We stood up and saw the knight did his best to keep the creature busy –with Garnet cheering him on – as Zidane was back in the sidelines trying to use a Dyne attack. I took this time to formulate a short plan. "Okay Joshua, here's the plan. While Zidane is trying to figure out his Trance attacks, the three of us – what the hell?" When I looked back to my side, he was not there. If this was an anime, I should be seeing his outline blinking on the empty space. I groaned. "Yeah, good plan. Ready... break. Like diversions needed any plans, just run around all willy-nilly and –ack!" I ranted when I felt something collide with me. "Oh how nice of you to join me again, Joshua. Should we talk about that diversion, now?"

"No time, just go in guns blazing!" he declared as he went back in the fight. "There are no guns in this place, you know!" I told him. Ah, to have guns. It would be a miracle to get one in this world. Since the closest to a gun they have is a massive cannon that shoots harpoons instead of bullets. I'd like to have a handheld one. Again, I digress.

I joined the two as much as I could. It could hold its own against the three of us. But we were stuck between trying to save her and killing the damn plant. If we damaged it more, it would have absorbed more life out of her. It already did it three times and we didn't know how long she would last. I wasn't sure if we could beat it back for more. "Zidane! Now would be a good time!"

"I got it!" the thief shouted. We felt a strong explosion of energy in front of us, blowing all of us off our feet, even the monster fell. That must have been Free Energy. But the attack didn't even touch it. "Be careful of that!" Steiner said.

"Not us, the monster!" I told him.

"I'm trying!" Zidane said. He focused once again and delivered another Free Energy at the plant. It managed to hit it dead on. It screamed in agony and tried to retaliate. But the captain had used this to get up close and personal with it and finish it off. Zidane used another attack at it for the final blow, blowing it off its roots again, this time, it didn't rise. They cautiously approached it, weapons and Trance powers ready for a sudden attack just like last time. I, on the other hand learned my lesson and stayed back. Steiner saw me and spoke up. "Quick, free the Princess!"

"Oh no, I'm not taking one step towards that thing," I said. "Last time I did that, I nearly got my head knocked off my shoulders. You do it!"

Steiner grumbled and took a step forward. "Don't worry Princess! I will have you out of there."

"Hurry..." she gasped. "I can't..." But before she could say anything else, the Prison Cage rose and reached above, climbed away and disappeared into the forest.

Steiner ran to the spot where it ran from. "Princess? PRINCESS!"

Zidane's Trance faded as the light on his body died down. He and Joshua joined the knight in the clearing. "What the heck? Where did they go?"

"She's gone," Vivi said. He was still trembling a bit, but he could stand. "I was too scared to cast spells... That monster's probably gonna eat her..."

_Ooh, not the best thing to say when there is an overprotective knight around the area._

Instead of arguing his statement, Steiner's eyes went to his feet. "How could I let this happen!"

"Don't worry. She's not dead yet," said Zidane, trying to salvage the moral of the two. "That monster was probably a minion. He's probably going to take her to his master."

"Who knows, maybe she'll just be kept alive when we get there," I said, almost sounding optimistic.

The knight caught on. "That means the princess might be–"

"Or she'll be dead before we arrive." _Almost _being the magic word. He glared at me and shook his fist. "Shut up, you!" he said.

"Besides, we're outmatched and exhausted. We're gonna need supplies if we want to get her back." I told them. I saw Joshua stepping closer to the clearing, but I pulled him back. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Confused, he asked. "Why not?" I began counting down. Three. Two. One...

Vivi screamed as another Prison Cage came down on him and captured him. I gestured at the poor captured boy. "That's why..."

"You knew there were more? Why didn't you say so?" Joshua scolded me.

Zidane called out in concern. Steiner gasped at the sudden attack of the plant and raised his sword. Joshua did the same while I looked at it with indifference. "Another one? So much trouble..." I said tiredly that I wanted to drop my sword and take a dirt nap.

Vivi futilely tried to escape the bars. "Let me go!" Despite his effort, it didn't budge. He looked terrified inside that monster's prison. "Help me!" he yelled, holding out a hand from inside the cage, desperate for anyone to grab his and save him. His whole body trembled in fear. It was just like earlier when Garnet was captured, he was literally unable to do anything.

"Don't worry!" Joshua tried to calm him down. "We'll save you!" He charged the new monster with his ninjatō held up for a strike. It whipped one tentacle at him. Joshua saw it coming and jumped over it. What he didn't see coming was the other tentacle slamming into him and sending him onto some bushes.

I saw Zidane and Steiner run forward side by side. The monster turned in time to see them advance. It smacked Zidane onto the ground and the knight was being slapped around like it was rejecting a date that was too persistent. Zidane saw me standing like a fool and shouted. "Hey, don't just stand there, do something!"

"Alright, fine," I replied. "I'm telling you, this is not a good idea." Time to get my ass kicked. I attacked the plant by my usual attack pattern, swing like a madman and hope for a critical hit, complete with the text appearing in big letters. I didn't even get close enough when it managed to grab my wrists, stopping the would-be assault. "Uh-oh..." The Prison Cage lifted me off my feet and threw me up the sky. Along the way, I was screaming my head off. Usually, I would say that I was having the time of my life. All I could say, it was not fun.

A tentacle grabbed my foot in midair and slammed me onto the ground like I was a sack of potatoes. I heard a loud crack come from my chest. Pain shot through my body so suddenly that I was about to yell. But the Cage wasn't done yet. It lifted me off again and slammed me right back. My head hit the ground with an ear ringing thud that made me dazed as it repeated it again and again for how many times I could count in my state. There were sounds that I couldn't distinguish. It may be from my body or someone yelling their lungs out. Then warmth was suddenly blasted around. It stopped. Whatever it was, it made it stop. Soon, I was finally dropped and gravity did its job discreetly, and for all I knew, my dazed vision was cut to black.

***- Chapter End -***

**Wow, that fight scene was a lot shorter than I imagined. Oh well, at least it's not overly long than what I actually written before. It took me almost two rewrites to finish this. Reviews please!**

**Wyxlan signing out!**


	11. Chapter 11: When No is not Accepted

**I haven't updated in a while, as always. But worry not! I come with good news as I return with a new chapter! It's long as usual. We find out if our protagonists survived their first encounter with a boss battle – if it is a boss battle, I really don't remember.**

**Now, onto the story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything Final Fantasy related, only my characters.**

**Chapter 11 – When No is not Accepted**

***-Eliot Fletcher – Chapter Start-***

Slowly, I woke up somewhere on something soft, as opposed to the hard earth I was knew very well. I could barely open my eyes, with them yelling to be closed once again. My eyes were not the only ones yelling for rest. My whole body was in pain and numb in some parts its making me go crazy. All thanks to that stupid plant. Speaking of which, that was all that I could remember the last time I was conscious. Did they manage to save Vivi? How about the plant spraying spores at the knight and the mage, did it happen?

I sat up and managed to take a good look of myself. Half of my clothes were torn up, if not shredded. The pants were so damaged it looked like those punk jeans skaters wore a lot. That would have looked cool if I didn't come out almost dead just for these pants. Bandages were wrapped on one of my legs, from the knees reaching the ankle. My jacket and shirt didn't fare better. The jacket was ripped to shreds, making it look like a poor man's rags, underneath it was my shirt filled with plenty of holes and tears into it, showing the wrappings around my chest. The sleeve of my left arm was ripped, a splint and more wrappings replacing it. I tried moving it. My fingers twitched, moving the little digits with slight pain. Good thing it can still be moved, with limited movement. My other hand went to my head due to the headache eating away at my skull. I felt, guess what, more bandages! One can never have too much fun being wrapped like a present! Well, at least all of my appendages were all accounted for. After all, I'm still alive, that I could be happy with.

I let out a frustrated groan, slowly lying back down on the softness that my body screamed for. _Shit, now I remember why I'm like this. I was knocked unconscious and now I'm here. I can only blame my inexperience. I didn't even know how to use a sword. Talk about going head first into a wall of spikes. Smart move..._ I smacked myself unconsciously with my good arm. That was another dumb move. My head screamed in pain. I stiffly shot up and wanted to yell to the heavens just to get it out of my mind, but when I saw Vivi sleeping peacefully across the room, I covered my face with a pillow and yelled into it. The bad thing is the thing I was sleeping – a broken bed caused by the crash and looked like it was on its last legs– on shook badly from my movements.

One fruitless attempt to steady myself by grabbing one of the bed's railings left me falling off the bed with a loud thud. "Motherf-" Before I could finish the loud curse, the door opened up and Zidane and Blank came in, suddenly alert.

"Looks like someone's awake," commented Blank.

"Oh, I'm still unconscious and sleepwalking, don't worry!" I said sarcastically. I rubbed my injured head carefully, trying to let the pain from the fall subside. Standing up, even with the help from Zidane, was not as easy as it looked. My legs wobbled, making it hard to stay standing. I had to hold on Zidane's shoulder and one of the bed posts for support. While I was being helped onto my feet, I took the short moment to look around. I was back in the ship of Tantalus, the Prima Vista. But I decided to play stupid for the meantime. "Where are we?"

"You're back in the Prima Vista," Blank replied. "He carried you, the kid and the big guy with the help of your friend."

"Yeah, the kid and the knight got sprayed with some gas," Zidane said, pointing to the resting black mage. "You, on the other hand, were worse off than them. You almost died out there. Good thing we were able to kill that thing before it smashed your head in."

Died...? Ah, right. I almost got myself killed from that beating I got from that monster. I told them it was a bad idea to send me in there. If I made a plan of attack, I could have saved myself the pain of injuries in every place in my body. Another wave of pain went to my head. "Good god, my head's having an earthquake."

"That tends to happen when you get your head slammed a couple of times."

Was he even sure it was a couple? Because it felt like a dozen to me!

"Enough, already," said Zidane, stopping what it may became an argument. "Go back to bed and rest. You still need to heal."

"Yeah, right. Like I'll listen to you." I started to go for the door, but – as if some power above decided to hurt me some more – my strength has not yet returned. Cue a lumberjack yelling 'TIMBER' and I fell to the floor face first. "Okay, I'll listen..." Like I had a choice. They got me back on my feet and led me back to the bed I have fallen from. I just hope it won't throw me back to the ground. "Now stay there and don't do anything stupid," said the monkey tailed thief. "The big guy and the kid is still weak. So just rest, it'll do ya better!"

Without a choice, I threw the covers over my head. "If you want me to rest then get out, your voice is too annoying and loud..." I grumbled under the sheets. The two left without a word. Soon, sleep took over without warning.

***-FF-* *-FF-* *-FF-***

Sometime later I woke up from the creaking of the door being opened followed by three pairs of footsteps entering the room. My head rang like a drum along the footsteps, and it was not pleasant. So I tried to bury the noise using the pillow I had, to no useful effect.

"To those ringing a damn bell, would you kindly kill yourself? I'm trying to sleep here!"

All movement ceased after I spoke. Thank god! Sweet silence, take me now!

At least until I felt a sudden weight imposed on me and wrapped itself around me. I threw off the covers and saw Joshua, hugging me like I was his childhood teddy bear. "What the hell, man? I'm trying to get some Z's here! Get off me!" I yelled as I tried to push him off me. I pushed him hard enough to release me from his grip and let him fall off the bed, flailing his arms everywhere for something to hold before hitting the ground, which he did as he let out a groan. Behind him was Zidane and Blank, looking on at our exchange.

Joshua sat up, holding his head, pouting at me for pushing him off the bed. "You're mean, Eliot."

"You shouldn't have charged me like a fricking bull then," I told him, crossing my arms and fixing him a look. I know that he was worried, but he could at least think first before throwing himself at me. I'm hurting here, if he didn't know. Now with his careless action, the headache I was starting to lose came back with a vengeance. I groaned, trying to calm the pain with a small massage on my forehead, softly but as the pain continued it became more of an impatient scrubbing on the forehead. A chuckle echoed in the room. My glare fell onto Zidane, who was stifling his laughter. "What's so funny, monkey butt?"

"You're pretty noisy for a guy who was just almost dead earlier," Zidane pointed out.

I gave him a sarcastic laugh that could make anyone I know flinch. It was too bad the thief was not one of them. "Yeah, and you're too nice to be a thief."

He grinned at the comment. "That's what I always go for," he said. Great, I just made his ego get bigger. I took a look around the messed up room. A certain someone was missing from his bed. "Where's Vivi?" I asked.

"He's with that knight gathering supplies." Zidane clapped his hands, looking like he remembered something. "Well Joshua, do what you have to do. Vivi and Steiner can't wait any longer."

"Do it fast," said Blank, who was leaning on the opened door. "Or that knight will be yelling loud enough to get us killed."

I looked at Joshua, confused from what they had said. Do what he had to do? What did that mean? It better not be something weird.

Joshua's brown eyes were on me. He frowned and let out a sigh. That did not sound good. "We're going to go look for Princess Garnet. Please keep yourself safe and don't become a bother to Baku and the others, alright? They might leave you here if you do."

Whoa! Where did that come from? Wait... Am I hearing this right?

"And just because you're not a hundred percent doesn't mean you won't help out when you can."

Is he really..?

"So please, take good care of yourself."

Before he could stand and walk away, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back so hard he fell back on the floor. "Ow, that hurt!" he complained.

I gave him a look that said 'you deserve that'. I was so angry that I couldn't care about his apparent pain. Then I turned my attention to the thieves standing around, observing the supposedly goodbye. "What the hell is this? You're leaving me here?"

Blank stepped forward and answered for Joshua, who was still on the floor. "They can't take you with them," he said. "You're still injured and you won't be able to fight in your condition. And besides, you barely made it from your last battle, what would be the odds when you fight against the big monster holding the princess. You should be glad to be here." I clenched my uninjured hand, angry that I'm being left like yesterday's leftovers. But despite that, Blank, unfortunately, made some good points. I was too injured to fight. Not only that, I would be a burden to them. They could afford to protect me while they go finding the princess. The only person I could blame for this is me. But I can't let them leave me here. That would take me out of the main storyline! I need to come along and I won't take no for an answer.

I swung my feet and carefully stood up, gaining a worried look from Joshua. "I can't let you do that," I said, clutching my injured arm.

"You can't! You're too hurt!" Joshua tried to argue. But I wouldn't let him.

"Worry about yourself and I'll worry about me," I told him.

Zidane then stepped in for him. "We can't let you go with us. You are in no condition to fight."

"Like I said, I'll worry about me" I said, more firmly this time. "I will not be left behind, lying on bed while you guys finish the job. I'm coming with you, and that's final." I shot the three of them a look that cannot be swayed any longer. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to get feeling back to my legs." I stiffly walked around the three, using the wall as support. It was a long walk, seeing that I came from near death. In what felt like five minutes, I was out of the room. I could hear a discussion occurring back in the room, they must be talking about me.

"Now, while they're in there..." I took something from my pocket, a small vial with blue liquid. If I'm right, this is what looked like an elixir, still I don't know what this is. I smirked at the vial. Where did I get this, you might ask? It was from Joshua, unwillingly, of course. Careless and touchy as he was, his hug granted me a split second opportunity to swipe this from his pocket. Maybe I should thank him for it... Nah, don't need to.

I removed the cork and quickly drank the liquid. When the last drop was in, I tossed the vial away. I waited for the elixir's effects to kick in. Then I felt a weird sensation run through my whole body. Goosebumps spread across my skin like a burning rash itching to be scratched (Ha!). My body felt so tingly, and it felt amazing! It lasted for a minute until the sensation slowly disappeared. My body didn't feel as heavy as before, as a matter of fact, I felt like I was lighter on my toes as if I was floating off the ground! I feel like I can run a marathon!

Enough of the silly celebration, onto official business! I moved everything that was badly injured before, and to my surprise, they weren't broken anymore! Yes! I'm fine! Now to look for some new clothes, I look horrible. And probably a new sword, I might have lost mine from being pounded like a potato.

With my newfound energy, I managed to find where they kept all their stage clothes. "Jackpot!" To whoever who owned this room, you have my thanks!

*Meanwhile back in Alexandria*

A certain girl left behind by a certain troupe suddenly coughed before she could serve her tray of drinks, almost dropping them on her customers. "Huh? Where did that come from?"

*Back to our story*

I managed to find a shirt as the same as mine, this one was a little lighter on its shade of color. The jacket was unfortunately irreplaceable. I did find this women's jacket that was about half of its length. If I wore that I would look more feminine, and I didn't want to be mistaken for a girl so I just let my jacket be torn, it did look a bit cool being shredded. I left the pants alone just to fit the jacket. Also, I found these killer pair of boots, definitely good for adventuring inside a homicidal forest.

Since I drank that elixir, my body felt great. So I got most of the bandages off my body, only leaving the splint on my arm and on some parts of my body. They might get suspicious if they suddenly see me move about like I had a miracle performed on me. I must look believable and to do that, I must keep these bandages with me.

I was wondering about the shipwreck when I was found by someone else.

The large boss of Tantalus stood there in the hall, his head looking from at me. "Uh...hi?"

***-FF-* *-Joshua Valenti-* *-FF-***

I scratched my head sheepishly as Eliot limped his way out of the room. "Heh, sorry about him. He's...stubborn."

"Yeah, for someone who almost died," Blank added.

"This guy was the one you were looking for?" Zidane clarified, to which I nod as an answer. "If it was me, I would have ditched the guy, seeing his attitude."

"Hey! He's just...cranky! Anyone would be cranky if they just woke up like that." They gave me an incredulous look. "What?"

"Now that's just putting it lightly," Zidane said, now waving his hand to dismiss the subject. "Okay, I'm going to check our supplies before we go. Why don't you go check on the other two, Joshua?"

"Sure," I said before I left the two Tantalus brothers alone. And so I went to find our two party members. I found them near the hole that led outside, the little boy sitting on the floor, patiently waiting while the other was pacing around the room, worried about his princess who was in the clutches to evil plant monsters. Steiner saw me approach and stopped his pacing.

"Sir Valenti!" he called. I guess I should explain why he called me that. From the last fight, he took notice of my fighting skills with my weapon. Just like Vivi, I was dubbed with the title "Sir", like for a knight as he saw it fit my skills. Although I always thought of my skills were more of a samurai, seeing as my uncle was keen on training me as one, and a title of a knight is for someone more fitting than me. But if that's what he wants, then okay.

"Hey guys, sorry for keeping you," I apologized.

"That's okay," Vivi said as he stood up and fixed his hat. He looked behind me, expecting someone to following me "Where's Zidane?"

"He's talking with his friend. It must be something important." 

"Like how to get their dirty thieving hands on the princess, I bet!" Steiner said, shaking a fist in the air.

I gave a shaky laugh. "Maybe they're just saying goodbye. I just came by to tell you guys there is going to be an addition to the team. My friend is going to join us to save the princess."

"Is he okay? When I got up, he was still unconscious," the little one asked, concerned for him.

I nodded. "He's already up. He said he was just going to get some feeling in his legs."

"Why would we bring another thieving scoundrel with us? They'll only bring us trouble!" Steiner said, angry to be informed of another one being on the team. He took a moment to compose himself before continuing on. "And besides, he's weak and injured. How is he going to fight in his condition?"

"I don't know, really," I shrugged, my face shifted into an expression of worry. "Maybe he has a plan? I can't help but worry for his health."

We waited for a little while in the room when Zidane appeared, ready to leave. "Okay, ready to save – " He noticed someone was missing. He glanced at me. "Where's the other guy?"

Right on time, a loud laugh echoed behind him. All of us turned to see the unexpected Baku and a seemingly fine and newly clothed Eliot, sharing a laugh while they slapped each other's back like they've known each other for years. "Oh, that was a good one. Tell me, what happened next?"

"The lad was so scared he never left the room for a whole month. Scared the bejeezus outta him, it musta been to do that!" The two again laughed at the supposed joke that they have been sharing. They finally stopped long enough to see us, staring at them. I was already wondering if his injuries gave him a different personality. Zidane was the most surprised out of all of us. He looked like a gaping goldfish for some reason.

Eliot noticed us staring. "You guys already done preparing? Good, I was getting a little restless. Until he started spewing stories," he said as he nudged towards the boss of the troupe. Baku let out a loud laugh and clapped the younger one on the back. "I know ya loved them so don't be tellin' me ya didn't!"

"Yeah, yeah," he chuckled as he tried to shrug off the man's hand.

"Uh...you guys done?" the blonde thief asked. "We kinda need to hurry right now, you know, with the princess' life on the line right!"

The two looked at him as if he grew two heads suddenly. "Right...someone's making this awkward," Eliot muttered towards the large man, to which he nodded. "Well, we'll be off."

"Give 'em hell for us!" Baku hollered to us as we were leaving. We went through the same log from the last time and headed deeper in the forest, with the plan of saving Her Highness from the clutches of the mother of all the monsters in this forest. Who knows what dangers and hardships we would encounter in there. I just hope we can get through it without many problems.

***-End Chapter-***

**Finally! I finished this chapter before I went home. Los Angeles has been a wonderful place to be in two months. I got to see many sights in my time there. Better stop talking and put this chapter up now. Don't forget to press the big button down there and give your reviews! Tell me what's wrong with my story if you find something wrong. I really need it to improve.**

**Wyxlan signing out!**


	12. STORY UPDATE!

**UPDATE!**

**Okay, I've been out of commission for a long time. I'd blame college (which I always do.) but that's one of the reasons I've been out and not writing for you guys.**

**You see, ever since I've written this story, I've been losing interest. Those interests lies in other subjects now, some of them still in self-inserts and the others in anime and game stories. But then, I still have a story for this one and I can't just leave it alone just like most of my story filled notebooks. And with its plot continuously revolving in my head, I must continue this story.**

**But how I wrote it changed. It was not how I saw it before. It always changed when I have a different idea for another story of mine (Ever since writing this story, my mind developed some sort of ADD and I can't focus on one story and it always roamed to my other creations in my development phase. Don't worry, I really don't have ADD.)**

**So what's my solution for that?**

**REWRITE!**

**Yes, I'll be rewriting the story to get most of my interest back here. It will even get a title change. A friend of mine told me that the name sounds weird. Many things will be changed. The plot will stay the same, but the changes will be implemented immediately at the start.**

**Now, now! I know there might be some people out there that won't be able to read the older story. Do not worry my dear readers! I won't be removing it from my profile so that any other readers out there can still see the story. (I'm getting so optimistic here. XD) Also, if you want me to change something in the story, tell me in the reviews what I should change or leave some of them unchanged. Your opinions will make me happy and make the changes better.**

**Thank you for the people who continue to follow me and the story. And for the reviews, which I know is only a few but I am still grateful for it.**

**Wyxlan signing out!**


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